BSS :
When Covid-19 ripped through India in 2020-21, several million people are thought to have died. Desperate efforts to stem the pandemic hurt the battle against another huge killer tuberculosis.India is the home to a quarter of the world’s TB infections and an estimated half a million people died of the curable lung disease in 2020 in the South Asian nation-a third of the global toll.
Because of the pandemic, global deaths from the “silent killer” rose in 2020 for the first time in more than a decade, reversing years of progress, the World Health Organization says.
In India, the number of new cases detected in 2020 actually fell by a quarter to around 1.8 million due to Covid restrictions and as the pandemic diverted resources.
Nearly two-thirds of people with TB symptoms did not seek treatment, according to a 2019-21 nationwide government survey released on World TB Day on Thursday. Ashna Ashesh, 29, diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis four years ago, saw how patients, many isolated and jobless because of lockdowns, struggled for support.
“They were incredibly afraid… They were reaching out for any kind of information that could be offered about how to access tests and medication,” the public health professional with the Survivors Against TB collective told AFP.
“The impact has been immense… Covid has set back the fight against TB quite significantly. A recovery plan for TB is critical, both in India and globally.” India now faces an uphill battle to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of ending the spread of TB by 2025, five years earlier than the UN’s target.
Experts and survivors are calling for intensive grassroots campaigns to find “missing” cases, more vaccine funding and support to combat malnutrition, a major trigger for TB.
