NEW DELHI: India recorded 24 lakh tuberculosis cases and over 79,000 deaths due to the disease in 2019. The numbers, while considerably lower than World Health Organisation estimates, translate into roughly 20,000 deaths every quarter. In comparison, Covid has killed around 15,000 people in India over the last three and a half months.
The 24 lakh cases represent an 11% rise over the previous year and bring the official number closer to WHO’s estimate of 26.9 lakh cases. This gap between officially recorded and estimated cases, often referred to as the “missing millions”, narrowed from over 10 lakh in 2017 to 2.9 lakh in 2019, shows the annual TB report released on Wednesday by the health ministry.
The report shows 79,144 deaths due to tuberculosis were reported in 2019, which is much lower than the WHO estimate of 4.4 lakh fatalities.
Private sector notifications saw an increase of over 35%, compared to 2018. Around 6.8 lakh patients were