The Government of India announced its plan to eliminate TB by 2025 during the Union Budget address in February. The declaration is extraordinarily ambitious, considering that India accounts for 27% of the world's 10.4 million new TB cases, and 29% of the 1.8 million TB deaths globally. India also accounts for 16% of the estimated 480 000 new cases of multidrug-resistant TB. The End TB Strategy by WHO aims to end the global TB epidemic, with targets to reduce TB deaths by 95% and to cut new cases by 90% by 2035.
While high-level political commitment is welcome and necessary, the real question now is how India can go from rhetoric to real progress? In an article published in BMJ Global Health, Madhukar Pai, Soumyadeep Bhaumik and Soumitra Bhuyan offer some suggestions that might help bridge the gap between ambition and reality.
Source: BMJ Global Health