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India accounted for the highest number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in the world in 2022, representing a staggering 27 percent of the global burden, as revealed by the new World Health Organization (WHO) 2023 Global TB report released on Tuesday.
Overall, 30 high burden TB countries accounted for 87 per cent of the world’s TB cases in 2022. Among the top eight high burden countries, Indonesia (10 per cent), China (7.1 per cent), the Philippines (7.0 per cent), Pakistan (5.7 per cent), Nigeria (4.5 per cent), Bangladesh (3.6 per cent), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (3.0 per cent) are included.
According to the report, India recorded 2.8 million (28.2 lakh) TB cases in 2022, with a case fatality ratio of 12 per cent. Officials stated that “The best estimate of the number of deaths in India from TB was 3,42,000 (3,31,000 among HIV-negative people and 11,000 among those with HIV).”
The report highlights that multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis, with 1.1 lakh cases recorded in India in 2022. Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme, pointed out a major global recovery in the number of people diagnosed with TB and treated in 2022, after two years of COVID-related disruptions.
“The increase is attributed to a good recovery in access to and the provision of health services in many 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 pre-pandemic levels in 2022,” she said.
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.
Featuring data from 192 countries and areas, the report reveals that 7.5 million people were diagnosed with TB in 2022, marking the highest figure recorded since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995. The TB incidence rate (new cases per 100,000 population per year) rose by 3.9 per cent between 2020 and 2022, reversing declines of about 2 per cent per year for most of the past two decades.
