India has ensured high treatment coverage among people diagnosed with tuberculosis and also achieved a significant increase in the number of people receiving preventative therapy, says Global TB Report recently released by the World Health Organization. The preventative treatment is offered to those at high risk of getting the infection such as household contacts of TB patients and people living with HIV. They are given Isoniazid daily for 6-9 months, the most widely used TB preventive therapy regimen worldwide. Data from the Global TB Report shows that 12.2 lakh people were put on preventive therapy in 2023, up from 10.2 lakh in 2022, and 4.2 lakh in 2021. India has also ensured a treatment coverage of 85% and is among seven of the 30 high-burden countries with high treatment coverage. This is significant considering TB is the largest infectious killer and without treatment it kills nearly half the people it infects. In India, the government offers free medicines for TB treatment, which is essential as the medicines can be expensive and the therapy may continue for as long as two years. Patients with TB may not be able to work during the therapy period and thereby lose out on income. The data shows that treatment was successful in 89% of the people with drug-susceptible TB, 73% of those with infection resistant to one of the common medicines rifampicin or resistant to multiple drugs, and 69% of those with extremely drug-resistant TB. One of the big challenges with tuberculosis treatment is the long duration for which people have to continue taking their medicines. With therapies lasting years, compliance can be poor. The government has been working on devising innovative ways to ensure compliance such as pill boxes that track and remind the patient to take medicine as well as introducing shorter courses of treatment. According to the WHO report, India saw a slight decline in the estimated number of tuberculosis cases and deaths in 2023, but it is nowhere near its elimination target. There were an estimated 28 lakh TB cases in India in 2023, accounting for 26% of the global cases. And, there were estimated 3.15 lakh TB-related deaths, accounting for 29% of the deaths globally. The report also said the gap between the estimated number of cases and the number of people actually getting diagnosed has been closing. India reported 25.2 lakh cases in 2023, increasing from 24.2 lakh the previous year.
