NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday said India is steadily progressing to eliminate TB by 2025.
Inaugurating India Innovation Summit – Pioneering Solutions to End TB, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Anupriya Patel, highlighted India’s remarkable progress in TB control and the pivotal role of innovation in fulfilling this mission.
She said the National TB Elimination Program (NTEP) is steadily progressing towards the goal of eliminating TB by 2025.
“The number of missing cases has been reduced from 15 lakh in 2015 to 2.5 lakhs in 2023. The programme was able to notify 25.5 lakh TB and 26.07 lakh cases in 2023 and 2024-the highest ever,” she said at the summit, which is being organized jointly by the Department of Health Research-Indian Council of Medical Research (DHR-ICMR) and the Central TB Division (CTD), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
India aims to eliminate tuberculosis by 2025 – two years ahead of the global target.
Citing the World Health Organisation’s Global TB Report 2024, she said that “the incidence rate of TB in India has shown a 17.7% decline from 237 per lakh population in 2015 to 195 per lakh population in 2023.
TB deaths have reduced by 21.4% from 28 per lakh population in 2015 to 22 per lakh population in 2023, she said and added that TB treatment coverage in India increased by 32% in the last eight years from 53% in 2015 to 85% in 2023.
At the summit, which aims to accelerate India's progress towards TB elimination by 2025, the minister also highlighted the new initiatives under NTEP.
She said a shorter and safer oral Bedaquiline-containing drug-resistant TB treatment regimen has been rolled out across all state/ UTs that has improved treatment success rates of drug-resistant TB patients from 68% in 2020 to 75% in 2022.
A more efficacious treatment regimen, mBPaL (Bedaquiline, Pretomanid, Linezolid (300mg) has also been introduced for drug-resistant TB which is 80% more efficacious for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) and will reduce treatment duration to 6 months, she added.
Patel also highlighted the Energy Dense Nutritional Support (EDNS), offered to under-nourished TB patients during the first two months of their treatment along with drugs.
Talking about the Ni-kshay Mitra initiative that was launched with the objectives of providing additional support to TB patients in order to improve treatment outcomes, augment community involvement and leverage Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, Patel said that “this initiative was launched to bring together people from all backgrounds into a ‘Jan Andolan’ and escalate the progress toward TB elimination.”
“The government has doubled the financial assistance under Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana (NPY) for nutritional support to TB patients from Rs 500/per month/per patient to Rs 1,000 per month per patient effective from November 1, 2024, while the Ni-kshay Mitra Initiative has also been expanded wherein food baskets to TB patients and their household contacts are being provided,” she said.
Highlighting the progress of the ongoing TB Mukt Bharat, a 00 days intensified campaign, which was launched on December 7, 2024, she said, the campaign covers 455 selected high-priority districts and involves a comprehensive strategy to mobilise resources, raise awareness and intensify actions against TB across all prioritized districts.
The campaign activities involve active TB case finding in vulnerable populations, early diagnosis, prompt treatment initiation and linkage to nutritional care.
Underlining the new Innovations rolled out under the program, the minister said that “ICMR has validated three indigenous handheld X ray devices, which makes it possible to reach vulnerable population groups for TB screening.
Hand-held devices offer advantages of low weight, portability, and low radiation exposure and are being used in the 100-day accelerated programme.
She said ICMR partnered with the Institute of Plasma Research, Ahmedabad, to develop DeepCXR, a tool for artificial intelligence-based reporting chest X-ray films.
“AI tools are expected to be a game-changer in detecting presumptive TB patients and quick initiation of treatment. ICMR also validated the CyTb skin test for the detection of latent TB infection, developed by Serum Institute of India Ltd. against Interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA), which is the preferred test for latent TB detection. However, IGRA is expensive and it may not be feasible to be introduced in resource-limited countries. Overall performance of CyTb was better than the currently used tuberculin skin test,” she said.
She further said that ICMR conducted a multicentric validation of PathoDetectTM an Indigenous molecular diagnostic NAAT test that can perform 32 tests simultaneously, detects MTB complex and first line drug resistance to rifampicin (RIF) and Isoniazid (INH) simultaneously as a one-step process.
Overall, the performance of PathoDetectTM was comparable to other molecular assays. Deployment of this test in the 100-day program, along with the already available TruNat test, has enhanced the capacity of molecular diagnosis of TB and early detection of drug resistance, she said.
Moreover, the Quantiplus MTB FAST Detection Kit developed by Huwel Lifesciences is the first in the world indigenous open system RT-PCR kits developed in India and validated by ICMR, Patel said.
“In comparison to the gold standard liquid culture, the sensitivity of the kit is 86 % and the specificity is 96 %. These kits are likely to be low-cost and have the potential to expand the outreach of TB molecular testing, including more than 3300 RTPCR machines used during the COVID-19 pandemic,” she added.
“Health Technology Assessment India under the Department of Health Research has assessed TB health Technologies like Truenat for TB diagnosis, BPAL/BPALM regime for MDR TB, Techo plus for tracking and managing TB health services, AI-enabled chest X-ray diagnosis and TMEAD an adherence monitoring device for TB treatment,” she further added.
“Innovations are crucial for TB elimination, offering faster and more accurate diagnostics, improved treatment regimens, and better prevention strategies. Use of digital health, artificial intelligence, data collection and health promotion will also play a critical role in reaching the “missing millions” of people with TB who go undiagnosed, and therefore untreated, each year,” she said.
The India Innovation Summit reaffirms the government’s unwavering commitment to eradicating TB by 2025, leveraging scientific advancements and community-driven efforts to accelerate progress toward this ambitious goal, according to a statement by the Union Health Ministry.