President Smt. Droupadi Murmu launched ‘Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan’ on September 9 to eliminate TB by 2025.
- The President also launched the Ni-kshay Mitra initiative to ensure additional diagnostic, nutritional, and vocational support to those on TB treatment, and encouraged elected representatives, corporates, NGOs, and individuals to come forward as donors to help the patients complete their journey towards recovery.
- The Ni-kshay 2.0 portal will facilitate in providing additional patient support to improve treatment outcome of TB patients, augmenting community involvement in meeting India’s commitment to end TB by 2025 and leveraging Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) opportunities.
- The virtual launch event showcased India’s accelerated progress through the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) owing to commitment at the highest levels.
National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP)
- The National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP), previously known as Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), aims to strategically reduce TB burden in India by 2025, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- In 2020, the RNTCP was renamed as the National TB Elimination Program (NTEP) to emphasize the aim of the Government of India to eliminate TB in India by 2025.
- It reached over a billion people in 632 districts/reporting units and is responsible for carrying out the Government of India’s five-year National Strategic Plans for TB elimination along with the States/UTs.
- The National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination was launched to achieve the target of ending TB by 2025 in a mission mode.
- It is a multi-pronged approach which aims to detect all TB patients with an emphasis on reaching TB patients seeking care from private providers and undiagnosed TB in high-risk populations.
- In 2021, India notified 21 lakh TB cases, successfully bridging the gaps between estimated number of cases and those that were recorded on the Ni-kshay portal previously.
- A range of forward-looking policies have been implemented including critical schemes such as Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana (NPY), which helped meet the nutritional requirements of TB patients, especially the underserved.
- From 2018 till present, around ₹1,707 crore has been disbursed to more than 65 lakh people on TB treatment across the country.
- As part of engaging the private sector, Patient Provider Support Agencies (PPSA) have been rolled out across 250 districts through the domestic setup and JEET initiative, leading to 32% of all TB patients being notified from the private sector.
- Building on Universal Drug Susceptibility Testing (UDST) for all diagnosed TB cases the programme has added 3,760 NAAT machines across the country till 2021 ensuring that patients are diagnosed with drug-resistant TB at the very outset and are put on correct treatment plans on a timely basis.