Over 21.5 lakh cases of Tuberculosis (TB) were notified in 2018 under the Revised National Tuberculosis Programme (RNTCP), an increase of roughly 17.9 per cent compared to 2017.
Of these, 25 per cent of the notified cases were from the private sector (private hospitals/ diagnostic centers), registering a surge of 41 per cent over the previous year. HIV co-infection among TB was 49,047 cases amounting to TB-HIV co-infection rate of 3.4 per cent.
The latest data was released in the ‘India TB Report-2018’ on Wednesday by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Among the notified, treatment was initiated for over 88 per cent or nearly 19.1 lakh patients, the report said. This includes 90 per cent of the patients notified through the public sector and 82 per cent of the cases from the private sector.
During the year, 94.7% of new and 94.4% of previously treated patient were put on treatment. Across states, the state of Uttar Pradesh accounted for over 19 per cent of all the notified cases followed by Maharashtra at 9.72 per cent and Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh at 7.4 per cent each.
The Union Territories of Delhi and Chandigarh had the highest rate of notification per 100,000 people, according to the report. While Delhi reported 505 cases of TB per lakh of population, Chandigarh notified 497 cases per lakh of population.
However, “this is because patients residing in many other parts of the country are diagnosed/notified from these two UTs,” the report stated. Moreover, nearly two-thirds or almost 63 per cent of (13.3 lakh) the TB patients in 2018 were men and the remaining were women (7.81 lakh).
Among both the genders, more than half of the patients were aged 20-49 years. While around 57 per cent of the notified male TB patients were between 20-49 years whereas among notified female TB patients over 54 per cent belonged to the same age group.
A total of 1,676 transgender TB patients were notified in 2018.
According to the World Health Organisation’s ‘Global Tuberculosis Report 2018’, TB is one of the top 10 causes of death and caused an estimated 1.3 million (13 lakh) deaths among HIV-negative people and an additional 300,000 among HIV-positive people.
In 2017, globally around one crore, people developed TB including 58 lakh men, 32 lakh women and one lakh children. India accounted for the highest 27 per cent (TB incidence of 27 lakh) of the total cases followed by China at a distant second with 9 per cent of the cases.
Drug resistant TB
As many as 58,347 cases of MDR/RR-TB (Multidrug- and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis) were notified during 2018. Rifampicin is an antibiotic and one of the most effective drug used to treat bacterial infections including tuberculosis.
Drug-resistant TB is a form of TB infection caused by bacteria that are resistant to treatment even with first-line anti-TB medications.
Out of the total diagnosed cases, 46,569 (~80 per cent) were put on MDR-TB treatment. Among these, treatment for 16,488 patients was initiated on shorter MDR-TB regimen (9-11 months), while the remaining were put on conventional treatment.
Highest cases of drug-resistant TB were reported from UP (14,466), followed by Maharashtra (9,895), Rajasthan (4,366), Bihar (4,055), and Gujarat (3,255).
“With ‘Active Case Finding’, 14.4 crore vulnerable people were screened, resulting in reporting of additional 49,733 cases. The efforts to improve diagnostics has led to a 52 per cent increase in drug-resistant TB detection,” the report said.
Moreover, the treatment success rate of 30,183 MDR/ RR TB patients initiated on treatment during October-December, 2015 (3Q15) to July-September, 2016 (2Q16) was reported to be 47 per cent with 20 per cent death and 19 per cent loss to follow up.
Per WHO data, worldwide around 558 000 people developed TB that was resistant to rifampicin (RR-TB), and of these, 82 per cent had multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). Three countries accounted for almost half of the world’s cases of MDR/RR-TB: India (24 per cent), China (13 per cent) and the Russian Federation (10 per cent).
Comments
0 comment