A glimmer of hope as India’s war on TB gets more funding
There is a glimmer of hope with India registering a slight drop in the number of new tuberculosis cases and TB deaths in 2016 compared with 2015. From an estimated…
Category: RNTCP
A looming threat of tuberculosis in children
The RNTCP guidelines on contact screening are heeded mostly in the breach. About 5,500 of over 76,000 children tested in nine Indian cities have been diagnosed with tuberculosis, 9% of…
Breaking the drug-resistant TB transmission cycle important
Nearly two months after the Health Ministry set a highly ambitious target of working towards elimination of tuberculosis by 2025, a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases indicates that India’s TB…
Without a magic wand, India cannot eliminate TB by 2025
At the end of 50 years of tuberculosis control activities, the disease remains a major health challenge in India. As per new estimates, the number of new cases every year…
About 0.5 million TB patients approaching RNTCP centres are not treated
In 2013, India had about 2.7 million people with TB, which is 23 per cent of the global burden of TB. India also accounted for 27 per cent (760,000) of…
Pharmacies in India may not be causing TB drug-resistance
If an earlier study revealed the tendency of private practitioners to liberally use antibiotics to treat tuberculosis leading to a delay in TB diagnosis and treatment and increase the chances…
Indian private sector bears 2-3 times higher TB burden than estimated
A study has found that in 2014 there were 2.2 million TB patients treated in India’s private sector alone. This is 2-3 times higher than current estimates. In all probability,…
TB: DOTS therapy offered by RNTCP should be more flexible
If there is already a long delay before TB patients in India start treatment, the Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) strategy offered by India’s TB control programme does not make…
