India: COVID-19 pandemic impact on TB response

• BOOM: COVID-19 has hampered India's TB fight: Dr Madhukar Pai (15 May 2020)

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an 80% drop in monthly notifications of TB, according to Dr Madhukar Pai.

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• South China Morning Post: TB crisis in India: disease that kills the most people in the world gains ground with testing and treatment disrupted by lockdown for coronavirus (12 May 2020)
  

Over 1,000 people a day die of TB in India. The number of cases detected fell 80 per cent in April as Indians missed test appointments and some labs closed; Undiagnosed TB carriers can infect others, and health experts warn hundreds of thousands of Indians could die of TB who otherwise would have been treated.

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• Scroll.in: India’s TB policy fails to address gender gaps in healthcare. Its COVID-19 response must remedy this (15 May 2020)
  

As India and other countries struggle with COVID-19, the gendered aspect of the disease has been almost entirely ignored. Neither is this surprising, nor is it the first time this has happened.

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• Scroll.in: As COVID-19 spreads, a TB survivor describes the trauma India’s health system puts patients through (4 May 2020)
  

The system sees us as a case, a number, a statistic. It provides us with a diagnosis and hands me my pills. It doesn’t support us.