Tuberculosis in India : is it just a medical problem?

Abstract

India features among the 30 High Tuberculosis (TB) Burden Countries that together accounted for 87 per cent of the global TB burden in 2015 in terms of the highest estimated number of incident TB cases (Global TB Report, WHO 2016), despite the prolonged operation of a disease-specific, focused national health program in the country to address TB and considerable expansion of TB care services. The disease is believed to be strongly correlated to socioeconomic gradients of the population. Also, the contagious nature of pulmonary TB coupled with misconceptions is often the source of strong social stigma that impacts health-seeking behaviour of individuals. This paper tries to track down from literature factors that might be partially offsetting the success of the conventional “diagnosis and treatment” based efforts to curb the disease in India.