Union Minister of State, Anupriya Patel, during her address at the ‘Interactive TB Vaccines Dialogue’ event in New York, highlighted the severity of tuberculosis and across the world, and advocated for innovative TB vaccines.
The MoS for Health and Family Welfare delivered the keynote address at the event on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
In her address, Patel highlighted India’s role as the chair of the Stop TB Partnership Board and reiterated the nation’s commitment to eliminating TB as a public health problem by 2030. She said that India’s TB program has become a “model for the world.”
She stated that India had seen a decline of TB occurrences by 16 per cent and an 18 per cent reduction in TB deaths in 2022 in comparison to the rates back in 2015.
“India is progressing against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at a far greater pace than the global average, with a decline in TB incidence by 16 per cent from 237 per hundred thousand population in 2015 to 199 in 2022 and a decline of 18 per cent in TB deaths from 28 per hundred thousand population in 2015 to 23 in 2022,” she said.
Referencing to the National Strategic Plan that had scaled up TB services in India, Patel said, “Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India has made remarkable strides in TB care and prevention, from infrastructure expansion to financial support for patients.”
She further stated that India’s TB programme has seen a treatment success rate of 88 per cent and that it has become a “model to the world.”
Patel also highlighted that under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP), a total of USD 373 million has been provided to 10 million TB patients in India.-TIN Bureau