FIGHTING THE MENACE

director general (TB), Union ministry of health and family welfare. To track missing cases, the health ministry has identified 189 high-focus districts where doorto-door screening is being done. “We are also focusing on creating awareness, so people with symptoms of the disease can get themselves tested,” said Dr Khaparde.

Nineteen high-burden states have also been asked to conduct universal drugsusceptibility tests on all diagnosed TB patients. “We have observed that the average period between the first time a patient coughs and the correct diagnosis of an MDR-TB case is 6.2 months. The GeneXpert test can diagnose it in a few hours, but – sadly – it is not as widely used as it should be,” said Dr Udwadia.

Ministry officials remain cautiously optimistic. “It may sound unlikely that India will be able to eliminate tuberculosis by 2025, but unlike earlier, at least we are talking about it now. We are reducing tuberculosis by 2% per year, while the need is to reduce it by 21%. It’s a good interim target to have, so we can curb the disease significantly,” said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, former director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research. World Rest of the world People screened in 70 districts World Rest of the world TB patients detected World Rest of the world TB treatment Treatment coverage success*

Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka and Delhi.

*Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) launched in 1997

VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN/HT FILE As many as 900,000 people with the disease are not getting proper treatment, which means they risk developing drugresistance tuberculosis and infecting others.