The challenge of Tuberculosis

What is the issue?

India has seen slight progress in dealing with TB but much remains to be done.

What are the statistics?

From an estimated 2.84 million new cases in 2015, the number dropped marginally to 2.79 million in 2016.
In terms of mortality, the drop was from 0.51 million in 2015 to 0.43 million in 2016.
The number of deaths and the incidence rate have been falling both globally and in India.
Drug resistance has also increased drastically over the years.
More than 0.58 million people had TB strains that were resistance to the drug ‘Rifampicin’ alone.
Also, estimate of multi-drug-resistant TB cases increased marginally to 84,000.
But only 33,000 people were enrolled for suitable treatment.

What are the targets?

‘End TB strategy‘envisions global reduction of 20% in incidence and 35% in mortality by 2020, taking 2015 as the base year.
To reach that target, the global drop in incidence has to be 4-5% a year which is currently only 2%.
Also, deaths should come down from the current 16% to 10%.
Achieving the targets will largely hinge on India as it accounting for the highest TB incidence (23%) and mortality (26%) globally.

What is the strategy ahead?

Notification - Recording and notifying the WHO about every diagnosed patient is an important first step.
While notifying has considerably improved over the past few years, more than 25% gap between incidence & reporting still exists.
Though notification was made mandatory in 2012, multiple surveys indicate large scale under-reporting.
Prevention - Baby steps have been taken to offer preventive TB treatment to a small (5%) number of people who are HIV-positive.
Also, few children who were faced with a higher risk of contracting TB were also offered such care.
Funding - Notably, of the total fund of $500 million for handling TB, domestic funding has accounted for 74%.
While, improved domestic funding is a positive, much more is needed in terms of funds and institutional commitments.

Source: The Hindu