The Government will require a whopping Rs 16,649 crore over the next three years, five times higher than what the last TB programme got during the period, to help achieve its target to eliminate the deadly disease by 2025, as per the draft National Strategic Plan for TB elimination (2017-2025).
The deadly disease claims 1,400 lives daily in the country.
Prepared by the TB Control Department of the Union Health Ministry, the ambitious plan envisages aggressive measures such as setting up of an apex body National TB Elimination Board (NTEB) to be chaired by the Prime Minister Office, reaching out patients seeking care from private providers, increase case detection by systematic screening in key populations among others.
India has more than million ‘missing’ cases every year that are not notified and most remain either undiagnosed or unaccountably and inadequately diagnosed and treated in the private sector.
The new NSP proposes detecting and treating all TB and multi-drug resistant TB patients through wide spread use of newer diagnostic tools, newer treatment regiments and innovative methods to manage TB patients using information technology. This will require large scale investments.
In addition to passive screening for symptoms based on diagnostic algorithm for all patients attending health facilities, a targeted 120 million key population will be actively screened in the community. Out of all individuals screened actively and passively, it is expected that over 30 million persons will be offered tests for diagnosis of TB with at least half of them getting highly sensitive rapid molecular diagnostics.