India’s Evolving Tuberculosis Challenge
Channel: NewsClickin
Date: 05/11/2016

India pioneered TB control among developing nations. A national TB control project was launched in 1962. With BCG vaccination as the main intervention, there was an air of expectancy that it would protect against TB. India is the undisputed global capital of TB with an estimated 2.2 million cases of active TB out of an annual incidence of 9 million cases globally and 40% of her population harbouring latent TB infection including an estimated 2.5 million HIV cases who can develop the most dreaded drug resistant disseminated TB at any time and succumb to it in no time. What is a matter of extreme concern is that TB accounts for majority of HIV deaths and there is a large pool of drug resistant cases that can potentially infect large numbers of people in the community each year if they are not insulated and rendered non-infectious by effective chemotherapy. India with a dubious distinction of harbouring a large pool of tuberculosis including HIV co-infection and an estimated 70,000 cases of multidrug resistant tuberculosis(MDR-TB) , many among them extensively drug resistant(XDR-TB) out of half million cases globally, can become an epicentre of TB explosion in the world if urgent measures are not instituted to make TB control really effective. In this regard, Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP)that was initiated by the government to cover most of the country has met with partial success in the incidence, prevalence and cure rates of tuberculosis. There is still a substantial population in this country who have no access to quality TB diagnosis and treatment.