Tuberculosis is a disease caused by a bacteria and mainly affects the lungs. It spreads very much like the Covid virus through droplets when a person with the illness coughs or sneezes. It is common knowledge that tuberculosis spreads easily where people gather in crowds or where people live in crowded conditions. People with HIV/AIDS and others with weakened immune systems have a higher risk of catching tuberculosis than those with better immune systems.India has the highest burden of TB with more than 2.5 million cases in 2021, which is around a quarter of the cases worldwide. In 2021, more than half a million people in India died from TB – around a third of the global deaths. The Indian Government has now set a very ambitious target to end TB by 2025 – five years ahead of the WHO goal. But is this a realistic goal? With India now being a country housing the world’s largest poor and undernourished population it is doubtful if TB can actually end by 2025. There are clear social determinants to tuberculosis – it’s the disease of the world’s poor and poverty is India’s biggest challenge.
There has been a huge setback to TB treatment during the pandemic years as resources were diverted towards treating Covid. Now the World Health Organisation (WHO) has started an aggressive campaign to end TB by taking testing and treatment to the people instead of waiting for people to come to the primary health care centres. Also testing has now improved with new and effective testing kits available and easily taken to the people even while the results are now available in much less time. However, ending TB or any disease requires that people’s health seeking behaviours change and they don’t wait until its too late before coming for testing and treatment. This would mean that people in the rural outback are given constant messages in a language they understand and can relate to. The dangers of not coming for testing until the disease is full blown and therefore more difficult to treat can be overcome by proper messaging. This is why WHO has to invest more in awareness campaigns not just by health personnel but by all stakeholders of society such as the different youth and women’s groups. This community awareness campaign conducted by an informed community in every village/locality is the best way to end TB.
Over-dependence on health workers to create awareness about every ailment is a wrong strategy. The classroom is another place where TB should be discussed because children are some of the best communicators of public health concerns. Most often children can put pressure on their parents to take the right action. Testing for TB should be as rigorous as testing for Covid. Only then can India expect to end TB by 2025.
