According to research, roughly 62.4 million individuals in India could be diagnosed with Tuberculosis by the year 2040.
Despite India's ambitious goal of becoming tuberculosis (TB)-free by 2025, a recent study paints a grim picture. Researchers predict that between 2021 and 2040, India will witness over 62.4 million TB cases nationwide, resulting in at least 8.1 million deaths due to TB bacilli. The financial impact could also be devastating. The study suggests that India could incur a cumulative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) loss of over $146 billion US dollars.
The researchers underscored in their publication in PLoS Medicine, that despite a decade-long effort to combat TB, the disease's health and economic impact persists significantly in India. Lower-income families will disproportionately bear the brunt of the health burden, while higher-income families will shoulder larger economic burdens.
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals aim for a 90% reduction in TB deaths by 2030 compared to 2015. However, the researchers believe achieving this target is improbable. Although funding for TB has increased since 2000, it still falls short of global financing targets, and more research and development funding is required for novel TB prevention tools for the estimated 1.7 billion people infected.
To meet these targets, substantial investments in improving case detection and enhancing effective treatments for both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB are essential.
The study emphasizes that the most efficient strategy to prevent a growing TB prevalence is early detection. In fact, improved detection and diagnosis could provide more substantial benefits than creating new TB drugs.
As per the Stop TB Partnership, a non-profit based in Switzerland, only half of the $2 billion annually spent globally on developing new TB diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines was invested in 2020.
The researchers noted that since India contributes to 28% of the global TB burden, their estimated share of investments between 2021 and 2040 is likely to be less than the benefits derived from the implementation of improved treatment interventions and significantly lower than the potential gains from achieving a 90% detection rate target.
If India successfully develops and implements its new National TB Elimination Programme (NTEPI) treatment regimen, improves TB detection rates, and manages to do so for a cost of around $123-124 billion, the study suggests this approach would be roughly cost-neutral and would potentially prevent more than 7 million fatalities and over 48 million TB cases.
The grim projection suggests that India, despite its ambition to be TB-free by 2025, may witness over 62.4 million TB cases and suffer over 8.1 million TB-related deaths between 2021 and 2040. Regarding the UN's goal of a 90% reduction in TB deaths by 2030, the researchers believe it's improbable for India, given the current funding situation and the need for more research and development.
