TB kills more people in India than HIV, STD, malaria, leprosy, and tropical diseases combined

Tuberculosis is one of India's most important public health problems. India accounts for nearly one third of the global TB burden.

Every day in India more than 20 000 people become infected with the tubercle bacillus, more than 5 000 develop the disease, and more than 1 000 die from TB.

In India, tuberculosis kills 14 times more people than all tropical diseases combined, 21 times more than malaria, and 400 times more than leprosy.

Every year, another 20 lakh people develop tuberculosis in India, nearly one million of them highly infectious sputum positive cases - two such cases developing every minute. Every sputum-positive patient can infect 10-15 individuals in a year; more than 20% of the 15-year-olds in the country have already become infected with the bacteria.

Tuberculosis is a major barrier to social and economic development. The direct and indirect costs of tuberculosis to the country amount to Rs 12,000 crore (US $3 billion) per year. Every year, more than 17 crore work days are lost to the national economy on account of tuberculosis, at a cost of Rs 700 crore (US $200 million). Every year, 300 000 children are forced to leave school because their parents have tuberculosis, and 100 000 women lose their status as mothers and wives because of the social stigma of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis kills more women than all causes of maternal mortality combined.

Every year, 300 000 children are forced to leave school because their parents have tuberculosis, and 100 000 women lose their status as mothers and wives because of the social stigma.

Unless urgent action is taken, more than 40 lakh people in India will die of tuberculosis in the next decade

HIV and multidrug resistant TB threaten to make this situation even worse. Unless urgent action is taken, more than 40 lakh people in India will die of tuberculosis in the next decade. There is no time for complacency. Each life saved represents a child, mother or father who will go on to lead a longer, productive, TB-free, life.

Challenges of tuberculosis in children
Vaccination has been the primary TB prevention method in children. In fact, BCG is the most widely used vaccine in the world. Although it is relatively ineffective in preventing infectious forms of TB, it does prevent more serious forms of TB disease in children. Nevertheless, a quarter of a million children still develop TB every year: Particularly vulnerable to infection from household contacts, many of them have been infected in their own homes, by parents or other relatives with active, infectious TB. Diagnosis of TB in children is notoriously difficult, as the early symptoms and signs are easily missed. Most national TB control programmes have little in the way of services for children. TB in the family also has a serious impact on children. In India alone, 300,000 children are taken out of school every year to care for a parent sick with TB.