Tuberculosis: On Track to Eliminate the Infectious Disease

Following various efforts to curb the progress of tuberculosis (TB), India has managed to reduce incidences by 16% and mortality by 18% since 2015. It intends to pursue its work to eliminate the disease by 2025.

“The National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme continued providing free diagnostic services, conducting approximately 18.9 million sputum smear tests and 6.83 million nucleic acid amplification tests in 2023,” as specified in the report released by the Union Health Ministry of India.

The incidence rate went from 23.7 million in 2015 to 19.9 million in 2022. The mortality rate fell from 2.8 million in 2015 to 2.3 million in 2022. Those numbers were reached through early TB detection, treatment initiation, and community engagement efforts. The country’s goal is to eliminate the infectious disease by 2025.