As we casually scroll past all the infographics loaded with information about tuberculosis, an airborne disease, on World Tuberculosis Day, there’s one common thread in most of the graphics that we are probably choosing to ignore. There is a definite rise in the number of tuberculosis cases in India.
The National Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Elimination 2017-25 claims that “TB kills an estimated 4,80,000 Indians every year, and more than 1,400 every day”. According to this Times of India report, tuberculosis cases have seen a 2.6 per cent rise in Punjab between 2015 and 2017 and according to this one, the number of cases in Meerut have gone up by 200 between 2016 and 2017.
The government, however, has launched an ambitious campaign, promising to end tuberculosis by 2025 – a deadline set five years before the global deadline.
Government of India is working in mission mode to make India TB-free. While the world has set a target of 2030 for TB elimination, we in India want to become TB-free by 2025!
At the recent Delhi End TB Summit, I spoke more about the subject. https://t.co/mbAbsZ5wMk #WorldTBDay
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 24, 2018
Now, it may actually be a good thing that the numbers have risen since more cases are now being reported, which also means that the awareness initiatives may actually be working. Even so, if India were to get rid of tuberculosis by 2025, a study highlights that it’s too close if we want to actually eliminate tuberculosis. The study points out, “With the current rate of annual decline of TB cases globally being 1.5%, India is lagging behind in its national decline rate. Even if incidence decline rate are increased by some percentage, elimination of TB from face of the earth is not expected before 2100. If India wants to end TB by 2025, rate of decline of incidence of TB needs to be more than 10%–15%/year over next 8 years.”
Challenges faced before complete eradication
There is a high rate of multi-drug-resistant TB among developing among new patients, and those that have been treated for the disease. This number has been progressively growing since 2011. According to the study, “Anyone who knows about TB will tell that TB elimination by 2025 is an impossible goal in India, especially with the world’s highest TB as well as the MDR-TB burden.”
Although a few concrete measures have been taken in order to work towards completely eradicating the disease with the boost of new funding, the research and awareness programmes have hit the ground running. A Wire report highlights that community health worker programmes would be able to improve detection and efficiently care for vulnerable populations suffering from the disease.
More importantly, the report highlights that the same treatment doled out to the masses will not be fruitful as different patients have different physiologies, which prevents the treatment from working. The standard procedure for all approach would have to be rethought if the battle against tuberculosis is to be won.
The situation is grim and appears to be that way because either people are usually of the medical recourse they could opt for or are complacent about the disease, which first makes its appearance as a persistent cough. Government initiatives and door-to-door screening procedures will only work so long as the patient decides to follow-up when the disease is still in its early stages. Thus, the need of the hour would be to reach at the grassroots and work the population that is still unaware of the far-reaching effects of tuberculosis before we set another potentially unattainable deadline.
The situation is grim and appears to be that way because either people are usually unaware of the medical recourse they could opt for or are complacent about the disease, which first makes its appearance as a persistent cough. Government initiatives and door-to-door screening procedures will only work so long as the patient decides to follow-up when the disease is still in its early stages. Thus, the need of the hour would be to reach out at the grassroots and work with the population that is still unaware of the far-reaching effects of tuberculosis before we set another potentially unattainable deadline.
