India to end TB by 2025: PM Modi on World TB Day
Over the last nine years, public participation through initiatives like 'Nikshay Mitra' has played a very important role in the fight against tuberculosis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
The Prime Minister said this after launching TB-Mukt Panchayat initiative, the official pan-India rollout of a shorter preventive treatment and family-centric care model for TB and release of India's Annual TB Report 2023.
The Prime Minister was addressing the 'One World TB Summit' in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The Prime Minister emphasised that India's new vision and approach should be known by the whole world.
"In the last nine years, India has worked together on many fronts in this fight against TB. Such as through people's participation, enhancing nutrition, treatment through innovation, full use of technology, and wellness and prevention, and missions like Fit India, Khelo India and Yoga," he said.
He stressed that public participation has played a very important role in the fight against tuberculosis.
"We had urged people to adopt a TB patient, under 'Ni-kshay Mitra'. After this mission, close to 10 lakh TB patients have been adopted by the common people of India. You will be surprised to know that even 10-12-year old children in India are contributing to the fight by becoming 'Ni-kshay Mitra'. The economic assistance of these Nikshay Mitra' has crossed more than 1 lakh crore. Such a huge community initiative running in India is very inspiring," PM Modi said.
On World Tuberculosis Day (TB), the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for intensified actions to eradicate the disease in the South East Asian region which bears the world's highest TB burden.
WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh highlighted the urgent need for countries and partners to strengthen high-level leadership and investments, accelerate uptake of new WHO recommendations and innovations, better address social and economic determinants, and improve multisectoral collaboration, according to the WHO Press Release.