PNS n
With no let up in tuberculosis cases, the Govern-ment is expected to soon finalise an “aggressive” national strategy to end the deadly disease, said Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Wednesday.
India has 2.8 million new TB cases annually leading to nearly half a million deaths.
Observing that India represents the single highest number of TB cases in the world, the Minister said his government has approached the “challenge” to end the disease in “all seriousness” and has accelerated action to meet the ‘End TB target by 2025’.
He also urged the global health body to include TB in its priority list of antibiotic resistant bacteria to guide research, discovery and development of new antibiotics.
Nadda was speaking at the WHO Regional Health Mini-sters’ Meeting on TB where Health Ministers from WHO South East Asia Region and Western Pacific Region countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, South Korea, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal, Sri lanka, Thailand, and Timorleste were also present. Bangladesh Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammed Nasim said that his country has maintained very good “basic TB control services,” with reasonable case detection and excellent treatment outcomes. However, in spite of progress in the fight against TB some challenges remain. He said 40 per cent of all TB cases still remain undiagnosed; mandatory TB case notification is yet to be fully operationalised; detection of MDR-TB cases needs to be increased along with increase in childhood TB detection and management.