India will not follow WHO TB reporting model

NEW DELHI: Learning from the Covid pandemic, when the WHO had claimed that the fatality figure was much higher than that reported by the government, the health ministry has said that it has decided to follow its own system to record TB cases.

"WHO estimates are based on modelling studies whereas our TB reporting is based on actual numbers recorded on the Nikshay portal, and therefore more reliable," said a ministry official.

She added the WHO estimated that 29.5 lakh were diagnosed with TB in India in 2021 and 4.9 lakh died due to the disease. "The 2022 dataset generated by us shows 27.7 lakh were diagnosed and 3.2 lakh died. This is lower than the WHO figure and in spite of significant improvement in the notification of the disease," she said.