India achieves record TB notifications; Chandigarh leads on TB notifications per lakh people

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 24

India witnessed record TB case notifications in 2019 managing to register 24.04 lakh patients and reducing the numbers of missed TB patients from an average of 10 lakh a year since 2015 to just 2.96 lakh in 2019.

India has the highest TB burden in the world with WHO projecting an estimated annual TB case incidence of 26.90 lakh in the country.

Out of these estimated cases, India detected 24.04 lakh cases last year reducing the gravity of challenge posed to TB elimination by missed patients, shows the latest TB India report, released by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday.

The record high notifications were powered by the private sector which reported a 45 per cent jump in notifications last year. Of all cases notified, 6.7 lakh were from the private sector, a rise of 45 per cent from 2018.

The rest were notified in the government system. Chandigarh leads India on TB notifications per one lakh people. As against the all India average of 177 TB case notifications per lakh people, Chandigarh in 2019 reported the highest TB notification rate of 606 per lakh people with Delhi next at 575, Puducherry at 314, Haryana at 255 and Himachal at 235.

States and UTs with high TB notification rate such as Chandigarh have achieved wide case coverage by catering to people beyond their boundaries.

Of the 24.04 lakh notified TB cases in 2019, 94.4 per cent were put on treatment.

TB notification rates for Punjab are 196 per lakh people.

India has set a target of TB elimination in 2025 ahead of the UN goal of 2030.

The government also announced awards for best states under National TB elimination programme.

In the category of more than 50 lakh population, the first prize went to Gujarat, second to Andhra Pradesh and third to Himachal Pradesh.

In less than 50 lakh people states, prizes went to Tripura and Nagaland and among UTs to Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu.

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