UP notified 6.24 lakh TB patients in 2023, highest in country

Uttar Pradesh notified 6,24,490 tuberculosis patients in 2023, the highest among all states in the country, in a key step towards eventual eradication of TB in India.

Deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak, who also holds the health portfolio, said, “This is the highest number of notifications made under the programme in the country so far within a year.”

He lauded the hard work of the state and district-level officials as well as the active participation of village heads to achieve this. Pathak said that the Central TB Division had given the state a target of notifying 5.50 lakh TB patients in 2023. In 2022, about 5.23 lakh TB patients in the state had been notified.

The maximum number of TB patients who were notified of their status were in Lucknow (28,283), followed by Agra (27,231), Kanpur Nagar (24,624), Aligarh (19,282) and Ghaziabad (19,191).

Pathak said that an integrated Nikshay Day is being organised on the 15th of every month at health centres to raise awareness on tuberculosis, along with identification of TB patients during the Dastak campaign and running active case finding campaigns from time to time.

“The initiative of TB-free panchayat has also been helpful in this because now there is a competition among the village heads to make their villages TB-free,” he added.

A decision has been taken to set up state TB training demonstration centres in Lucknow and Gorakhpur, which will further accelerate the TB eradication programme.