- The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India recently commemorated the World TB Day with a function to mark the occasion. World TB Day is observed every year on March 24.
- World TB Day commemorates the date in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB), an infectious airborne disease.
- In 2017, the government of India had launched National Strategic Plan (NSP) for TB Elimination (2017-2025). It is a framework to provide guidance for the activities of various stakeholders to reduce the burden of TB mortality and morbidity. It aims to work towards the elimination of TB in India by 2025. This would be 5 years ahead of the Sustainable Development Targets (SDG 3.3) which sets the goal to 2030.
- In 2018, the TB-free India Campaign was launched to take the activities under the National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination.
- In 2018, the government also launched Nikshay Poshan Yojana. It is a direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme for nutritional support to TB patients. Under the scheme, financial incentive of Rs.500 per month is provided to each notified TB patient for duration for which the patient is on anti-TB treatment
