Context: Recently,  ‘India TB Report 2020’ was released by the Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare .

Key Findings

• The National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme has comprehensively moved closer to near-complete online notification of all TB cases in the country through the NIKSHAY portal.
• 24.04 lakh patients have been notified through the system, an increase of 11% over last year, with 6.7 lakh patients being notified from the private sector.
• The first line standard treatment was initiated for 22.7 lakh (94.4%) of the notified drug sensitive TB cases.
• Mapping of high-risk groups, carefully planned systematic screening and active case finding for active TB has improved early case detection leading to reduced risks of transmission, poor treatment outcomes and adverse social and economic consequences.
• In 2019, 27.74 crore population were screened across 337 districts in 23 States resulting in 62,958 TB cases identified.
• The laboratory network now includes 6 National Reference Laboratories, 31 Intermediate Reference Laboratories, 50 certified laboratories for Liquid Culture and DST services and 64 certified laboratories for LPA services along with 20,356 Designated Microscopy Centres.
• The 2019 programme focussed on quality of services offered by laboratories and supported TB C&DST laboratories in achieving the prestigious National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation.
• The programme also rolled out External Quality Assurance of CBNAAT machines using dried spot panels and 651 (98%) out of 664 machines attained proficiency scores of 80% and above.
• A Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) was also rolled out to establish uniformity in laboratory processes across the network, minimize dataentry errors and to automate notifications by linking with NIKSHAY.
• Over 94% of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) are being screened in ART centres for TB symptoms.
• Nagaland and Tripura have been awarded for being the best performing small states with less than 50 lakh population under National TB elimination programme in the year 2019.
• In the categories of larger states with more than 50 lakh populations, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh were awarded as best performing States.
• Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu were chosen as the best performers in the category of Union Territory.