Tuberculosis crisis in India: disease that kills the most people in the world gains ground with testing and treatment disrupted by lockdown for coronavirus

Over 1,000 people a day die of TB in India. The number of cases detected fell 80 per cent in April as Indians missed test appointments and some labs closed

Undiagnosed TB carriers can infect others, and health experts warn hundreds of thousands of Indians could die of TB who otherwise would have been treated

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Tuberculosis patients are treated in Agartala, India. Coronavirus lockdowns could lead to as many as 1.4 million additional tuberculosis deaths in the country, as testing and treatment programmes are disrupted. Photo: LightRocket via Getty Images)

Published: 11:55am, 12 May 2020Updated: 8:00pm, 12 May 2020

In April, government health care centres in India detected 34,342 new cases of an insidious disease that targets the lungs. There is growing alarm that the numbers could surge, creating an epidemic India is ill-equipped to handle. And no, it is not Covid-19. It is the world’s biggest infectious killer: tuberculosis.

Under lockdown since March 25, India in its battle against coronavirus has neglected this disease, which has plagued the country for centuries,

Access to diagnostic clinics has been difficult. People who were suspected of having TB and were asked to go for a test before the lockdown have not been able to go. Some labs are shut, but the bigger problem is the lack of public transport and restrictions on people’s movements.

That cases of this highly infectious disease are going undetected is revealed in the figures. Those TB cases detected in India in April are a fall of almost 80 per cent from the 156,000 cases detected in the same month a year ago, according to Nikshay, the country’s official TB portal.

An Indian health worker (left) speaks to a tuberculosis patient at a clinic in Mumbai. The disease currently kills more than 1,000 Indians every day. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

India hopes to eliminate TB by 2025. With 2.8 million cases annually, India accounts for more than one-fourth of the world’s reported cases. The disease currently kills more than 1,000 Indians every day.