Racing against time to meet its ambitious goal of eradicating tuberculosis (TB) by 2025 - five years ahead of the target fixed by the WHO - the Government is hopeful that various transformative strategies introduced in the last few years such as engaging private sector and the community, social support besides better healthcare facilities will help make the country free of the deadly disease.
“The measures are delivering results”, Vikas Sheel, Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry told reporters here while sharing details of various steps taken by the Government since the launch of the new National Strategic Plan (2017-25). Under the plan, the Government has committed to ending TB by 2025 - 80% reduction in incidence and 90% reduction in mortality by 2025 from a baseline of 2015.
The official said that there has been a 38 per cent increase in TB case notifications to the Government - from 17.36 lakhs in 2017 to 23.98 lakhs in 2019. “It means that we have been successful in closing the notification gap (between estimated incidence and notified cases), referred earlier as the ‘missing million’, to less than 3 lakhs, through greater engagement with private sector health care providers,” said Vikas Sheel.
In line with the National Strategic Plan, the Government has rolled out private sector engagement programs across the country to engage private providers such as formal and informal doctors, chemists and diagnostic labs, aimed at facilitating appropriate delivery of TB diagnosis and treatment. In 2018, the Government partnered with the Global Fund to launch JEET or the Joint Effort for Elimination of TB, a private sector engagement program operating in 45 large cities across the country.
The official added, “The increased number of notifications is an important step in the elimination of the disease from the country. We are already providing patients in the private sector with diagnostics, financial incentives of Rs 500 and free drugs, since last year. TB notifications have increased 14% in 2019 as compared to the previous year with overall TB cases reported at 23.9 lakhs in both private and public sector.”
Dr KS Sachdeva, Deputy Director General, Central TB Division said rapid molecular testing devices have been ramped up from 1180 to 1530 in the year 2019. Also, he said, 19.26 lakh TB patients are now on daily regimen through Fixed Dosage Combination initiated since October 2017. “Also, there are better and effective treatment regimen under which newer drugs (bedaquiline and delamanid) were introduced in 2018,” he added. The Ministry has also announced financial incentives of upto Rs 1 Crore to the best performing State in eradication of the deadly disease.
However, major challenges remain. For instance, migrant population, lack of enough funds, unawareness coupled with the wide prevalent stigma associated with the contagious disease.
According to the Government data, although there is a provision of Rs 500 to all TB patients as form of nutrition support, there is a need to provide additional support to patients to ensure treatment completion.
Also, “ according to financial management report (2016-17) the average utilization of the allocated funds under the NTEP was just 52.7 per cent.”