• India accounted for the highest number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in the world in 2022, representing 27 per cent of the global burden, according to WHO’s 2023 Global Tuberculosis Report. 

• Tuberculosis was the world’s second leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, after COVID-19, and caused almost twice as many deaths as HIV/AIDS in 2022. 

• The report shows that globally, an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2022, up from 10.3 million in 2021.

• The number of people newly diagnosed with TB was 7.5 million in 2022 globally. This is the highest number since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995.

• The report underscores a significant worldwide recovery in the scale-up of TB diagnosis and treatment services in 2022. 

• It shows an encouraging trend starting to reverse the detrimental effects of COVID- 19 disruptions on TB services.

• The increase in diagnosis is attributed to good recovery in access to and provision of health services in many countries.

• Urgent action is required to end the global TB epidemic by 2030, a goal that has been adopted by all Member States of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Tuberculosis

• Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. It can spread when people who are sick with TB expel bacteria into the air – for example, by coughing.

• Every year, 10 million people fall ill with TB. Despite being a preventable and curable disease, 1.5 million people die from TB each year.

• TB is the leading cause of death of people with HIV and also a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance.

• Most people who develop the disease are adults.

• Many new cases of TB are attributable to five risk factors: undernutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, smoking and diabetes.

• TB is preventable and curable. About 85 per cent of people who develop TB disease can be successfully treated with a 4/6-month drug regimen. Treatment has the added benefit of curtailing onward transmission of infection.

• Economic and financial barriers can affect access to health care for TB diagnosis and completion of TB treatment; about half of TB patients and their households face catastrophic total costs due to TB disease. 

• Progress towards universal health coverage (UHC), better levels of social protection and multisectoral action on broader TB determinants are all essential to reduce the burden of TB disease.

Other key points of the report:

• As with previous WHO global TB reports, the 2023 edition is based primarily on data gathered by WHO from national ministries of health in annual rounds of data collection. As many as 192 countries and areas (out of 215) with more than 99 per cent of the world’s population and TB cases reported data, including all high TB burden countries.

• India, Indonesia and the Philippines, which together accounted for over 60 per cent of the global reductions in the number of people newly diagnosed with TB in 2020 and 2021, all recovered to beyond 2019 levels in 2022.

• Geographically, in 2022, most people who developed TB were in the WHO Regions of South-East Asia (46 per cent), Africa (23 per cent) and the Western Pacific (18 per cent), with smaller proportions in the Eastern Mediterranean (8.1 per cent), the Americas (3.1 per cent) and Europe (2.2 per cent).

• The total number of TB-related deaths (including those among people with HIV) was 1.3 million in 2022, down from 14 million in 2021.

• However, during the 2020-2022 period, COVID-19 disruptions resulted in nearly half a million more deaths from TB. TB continues to be the leading killer among people with HIV.

• Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis. While an estimated 410,000 (4.1 lakh) people developed multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant TB (MDR/RR-TB) in 2022, only about two in five people accessed treatment.

• There is some progress in the development of new TB diagnostics, drugs and vaccines. However, this is constrained by the overall level of investment in these areas.

• In 2022, about 55 per cent of people who developed TB were men, 33 per cent were women and 12 per cent were children (aged 0–14 years).

• India has made tremendous progress in improving case detection and reversed the impact of COVID-19 on the TB programme. The treatment coverage has improved to 80 per cent of the estimated TB cases, an increase of 19 per cent over the previous year.

• The only country in which a national TB prevalence survey has been completed since 2019 is India. The survey was started in 2019, interrupted for several months in 2020 and then completed in 2021.

Indian govt’s initiatives to combat TB

• The National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination (2017-25) was approved on May 8, 2017 and is being implemented in the entire country with the goal of Ending TB by 2025. It is a multi-pronged approach that aims to detect all TB patients with an emphasis on reaching TB patients seeking care from private providers and undiagnosed TB in high-risk populations.

• In September 2022, President Droupadi Murmu launched Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, to provide additional nutritional support to those on TB treatment, through contributions from community and organisations.

• Under the Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, more than one lakh Nikshay Mitras (donors) are supporting over 11 lakh TB patients all over the country presently.  

• Under Nikshay Poshan Yojana, about Rs 2,613 crore have been disbursed to over 95 lakh TB patients since its launch in 2018. 

• Newer patient centric initiatives like Family Caregiver Model and Differentiated Care have been introduced to ensure further reduction in mortality and improvement in treatment success rates.

• In March 2023, Prime Minister Narendram Modi launched various initiatives, including the TB-Mukt Panchayat initiative to leverage the support of over 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats to raise awareness about TB.

• The National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP), previously known as Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), aims to strategically reduce TB burden in India by 2025, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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