India's TB Incidence Plunges 21%, Outpacing Global Decline

According to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global TB Report 2025, India's tuberculosis (TB) incidence has seen a significant decline in recent years. From 2015 to 2024, the country's TB incidence fell by 21%, from 237 cases per lakh population to 187 per lakh population. This decline is nearly double the pace observed globally, which stands at 12%.

India's innovative approach to TB case finding, driven by the swift uptake of newer technologies, decentralization of services, and large-scale community mobilization, has been instrumental in this progress. As a result, the country's treatment coverage has surged to over 92% in 2024, up from 53% in 2015. This has led to the diagnosis of 26.18 lakh TB patients in 2024, out of an estimated incidence of 27 lakh cases.

Furthermore, the number of "missing cases" – those who had TB but were not reported to the program – has decreased from an estimated 15 lakh in 2015 to less than one lakh in 2024. Additionally, there has been no significant increase in the number of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB patients in the country, and the treatment success rate under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan has increased to 90%, surpassing the global treatment success rate of 88%.

India's TB mortality rate has also decreased from 28 per lakh population in 2015 to 21 per lakh population in 2024, reflecting significant progress in reducing deaths due to the disease. Since its launch in December 2024, the country's flagship TB elimination mission, the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, has achieved extensive reach, screening over 19 crore vulnerable individuals for TB across the country, leading to the detection of over 24.5 lakh TB patients, including 8.61 lakh asymptomatic cases.