India's tuberculosis mortality has fallen by 38 per cent since 2015, according to the Global Tuberculosis Report 2026 released by the World Health Organization on November 12, 2026. The decline is steeper than the global reduction of 35 per cent over the same period. India's TB mortality rate has dropped from 28 to 18 deaths per lakh population, and the treatment success rate for drug-susceptible TB stands at 94 per cent.
The findings were reported in a Press Information Bureau release, which was carried by DD India. The government credited the gains to early detection, timely treatment, the use of technology and stronger patient support. Nutrition assistance under the Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana, community support through the Ni-kshay Mitra initiative, and artificial intelligence tools, including the Khushi AI chatbot and an avatar videobot, were cited as part of the approach. The government also noted that 96 per cent of the TB programme's funding comes from domestic sources, a point that underlines the reliance on the national budget rather than external donors.
The TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, an intensified campaign launched on December 7, 2024, forms the core of the effort. A second 100-day drive followed on March 24, 2026, targeting 1.58 lakh high-risk villages and wards. Through November 8, 2026, more than 25 crore people had been screened, with over 11 crore chest X-rays and over 3 crore NAAT tests conducted. The screening drive identified 48.64 lakh new TB cases, of which 14.97 lakh were asymptomatic, meaning these people showed no symptoms at the time of detection. Early identification of such cases is central to the programme's strategy of treating the disease before it spreads further.
Local participation is a key part of the campaign. Youth volunteers, National Cadet Corps cadets and members of the MY Bharat platform serve in JOSH Teams at block and ward levels, supporting screening and follow-up in their own communities. Alongside this, 67,933 panchayats were declared TB-free in 2025, a designation that reflects the local reach of the campaign beyond urban centres.
The mortality estimates in the report draw on sample registration data from the Registrar General of India, verbal autopsies and records from the Ni-kshay TB notification system. Verbal autopsies, in which trained personnel interview family members about the circumstances of a death, are one of the methods used where medical certification is incomplete. A national TB prevalence survey conducted in 2025 by the ICMR-National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis is still under technical discussion with the WHO. The WHO is expected to publish an updated India country profile later, which will give a fuller picture of the survey's findings and of how they bear on the estimates already published.
Source: ddindia.co.in
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