86.9 per cent TB treatment success rate until Dec 2023: Sources
New Delhi: India has made tremendous progress in the elimination of Tuberculosis from the country, the treatment success rate surged to 86.9 per cent by December 2023, marking the highest rate in nine years, according to sources.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government of India is aggressively pursuing the elimination of TB from the country by 2025, five years ahead of the global sustainable development goals' 2030 deadline related to TB.
According to the sources, however, there was a marginal increase to 85.5 per cent in 2022. "Over the last 9 years, despite one-third of notifications coming from the private sector, the programme was able to sustain a treatment success rate of above 80 per cent. In 2021, the success rate had reached 84 per cent and in 2022, it marginally increased to 85.5 per cent," sources told ANI.
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The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare spearheaded the national TB Elimination Programme with five key objectives: early diagnosis, prompt treatment with quality drugs, engagement with patients seeking care in the private sector, prevention strategies including contact tracing in high-risk and vulnerable populations, airborne infection control, and multi-sectoral response to address social determinants.
Under the National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination, over 1.4 billion people live in more than 800 districts and reporting units and are responsible for carrying out the Government of India's five-year National Strategic Plans for TB Elimination along with the States/UTs.
According to an ANI report, The National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination was launched to achieve the target of ending TB by 2025 in mission mode. It is a multi-pronged approach that aims to detect all TB patients, with an emphasis on reaching TB patients seeking care from private providers and undiagnosed TB in high-risk populations.
"The programme has been implementing the four strategic pillars of Detect-Treat-Prevent-Build (DTPB) of the National Strategic Plan 2017-2025, which has led to the scaling up of free, high sensitivity diagnostic tests and algorithms and ensuring free TB drugs for all TB cases," said a source with knowledge of the National Strategic Plan 2017-2025.
