The public health officials in India are putting sedulous efforts on drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) and will find out the short comes very soon, said secretary of Health & Family Welfare, Luv Verma at an Assocham event.
"India is highest TB burden country in the world, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the global incidence and in 2012, out of the estimated global annual incidence of 8.7 million TB cases; 2-2.4 million were estimated to have occurred in India, said Verma while addressing the Assocham "Tuberculosis Awareness, Prevention & Wellness Programme" in New Delhi.
Verma highlighted the major revised national tuberculosis control programme (RNTCP) achievements, treatment success rates have tripled from 25% in pre-RNTCP era to 88% presently (2012) and TB death rates have been reduced from 29% to 4% during the same period. Inception of the programme has examined more than 144 million TB suspects, also diagnosed more than 18 million TB cases and saved more than 3.2 million lives.
"Since 2007, RNTCP has also achieved the NSP case detection rate of more than 70% in line with the global targets for TB control while maintaining the treatment success rate of >85% as per the 11th five year plan objectives."
"Nearly 3397 NGOs collaborations and 13,525 private practitioners are involved in the programme in different signed schemes under NGO/PP schemes. Over 320 medical colleges (including private ones) have been involved in RNTCP by the end of quarter-3 of 2013," said Verma.
"To improve access to tribal and other marginalized groups the programme has developed a Tribal action plan which is being implemented with the provision of additional TB units and DMCs in tribal/ difficult areas, additional staff, compensation for transportation of patient & attendant and higher rate of salary to contractual staff," said Verma.
Nata Menabde, WHO Representative to India said, "India has 26% of the incident TB cases globally. Annually, 1.3 million incident TB cases are notified to the national programme. The patients who access the public health programme get quality assured diagnosis, treatment and public health support required for successful treatment outcomes. However, there are an estimated 2.2 million incident TB cases in India. Hence, there are nearly a million cases missing from notification. This missing million, also more than a third of the TB cases in India, are unable to avail government services as most of them are managed in the private sector."
DS Rawat, secretary general, Assocham, said "In India, two deaths occur every three minutes due to TB. Given this, it is critical to bring together various stakeholders who can address the problem on one platform to identify how they can collaborate, and share best practices and successes. Assocham is privileged to collaborate with CTD and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on an awareness and preventive healthcare program for TB. We encourage corporates to join us in this endeavour to provide universal access to diagnosis and treatment for TB to all Indians."
