“India’s efforts are a new model for the global war on tuberculosis (TB)”. This was stated by Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi as he urged citizens to work collectively towards TB elimination in spirit of Jan Bhaagidari on a war footing and inaugurated the One World TB Summit 2023, in Varanasi.

The Prime Minister unveiled the “Annual India TB Report 2023” which is a compilation of the country’s efforts towards making India TB-free by 2025. He launched a Training module on Extra Pulmonary Tuberculosis. The module is developed for training the healthcare workers of secondary and tertiary levels of public and private sector in India. The Prime Minister also launched the TB-Mukt Panchayat initiative to leverage the support of over 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats to raise awareness about TB, eliminate the stigma attached to the disease and help monitor and improve uptake of services.

A new Treatment Preventive Therapy was also launched to prevent the development of active TB – thereby stemming the spread of the disease. Alongside, a family-centric care model was also announced to ensure the wellbeing of families affected by TB.

The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of the National Centre for Disease Control & High Containment Laboratory and inaugurated the site for the Metropolitan Public Health Surveillance Unit in Varanasi.

Modi informed the audience about the tremendous success of India’s National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP). He noted that “ICMR institutes like National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) has completed the world’s largest National Tuberculosis Prevalence Survey which helped us understand the TB burden at State level for targeted programmatic interventions.”

He highlighted that India is the only country in the world to implement a Sub-National Certification (SNC) exercise, a novel scientific method through which districts are verified for their progress of elimination. The Prime Minister also informed that more than Rs 2,000 crore have been directly transferred to more than 75 lakh TB patients under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme for TB patients.