India will fail to meet 2025 TB ‘elimination’ target

India will fail to meet 2025 TB ‘elimination’ target

Sub: Sci

Sec : Health

Context:

• According to WHO Global TB Report 2024 and the India TB Report 2024, India will not be able to even meet the 2025 milestones set by the WHO End TB Strategy, let alone achieving the ambitious goal of eliminating TB by 2025.
• Even in 2023, India has not met the 2020 milestones of the End TB Strategy for both TB incidence and deaths.

India’s target:

• In 2018, the central government set an ambitious goal for India to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025, aiming to achieve this five years ahead of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of 2030.
• The goal was reiterated by PM Modi in March 2023, during the One World TB Summit in Varanasi.

SDG target for TB:

• The SDG target is a 90% reduction in TB deaths and an 80% reduction in TB incidence by 2030 compared to 2015 levels.
• Also, WHO’s End TB Strategy sets a target of 75% reduction in TB deaths and an 50% reduction in TB incidence by 2025 compared to 2015 levels.

India’s Progress: As per India TB Report 2024

• India did not meet the ‘elimination’ targets set for 2023 by the India’s National Strategic Plan for TB elimination, that is reducing the estimated TB incidence rate per lakh population to 77, and reducing the estimated TB deaths per 1,00,000 population to six.

About Tuberculosis:

• Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
• TB commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect other parts (extrapulmonary TB)
• Tuberculosis spreads from person to person through the air, when people who are infected with TB infection cough, sneeze or otherwise transmit respiratory fluids through the air.