Will make India Tb-free before rest of world: PM

NEW DELHI: India is pushing to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) five years ahead of a 2030 global target by adopting a “new approach and strategy”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

“India has set the goal of eliminating TB five years before 2030, in 2025, with a new approach and strategy,” the PM said while launching the Tb-free India Campaign at the END-TB Summit in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The new strategy would involve an approach to reduce new cases and prevalence levels by 80% from the 2015 level and deaths from the disease by 90%.

The country is focusing on active screening and developing new diagnostic assays and medicine combinations to treat drugresistant infection to achieve its target. With 2.79 million cases, 423,000 deaths on an average, and 211 new infections per 100,000 people, India has the highest number of TB patients worldwide, WHO’S TB Report 2017 says.

To reach elimination levels, the government’s National Strategic Plan has a goal of reducing new TB cases to 44 per 100,000 people, from a baseline of 217 per 100,000 people in 2015, and bring the rate of death down by 90% from 32 per 100,000 in 2015 to three per 100,000 in 2025.

Active screening with mobile TB vans is being used to detect undiagnosed infections. In last two years, 55 million people from 378 districts have been screened.