‘India on the road to ending tuberculosis by 2025’

Ditiu was addressing the ‘One World TB Summit’ organised in Varanasi by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Stop TB Partnership to mark World Tuberculosis Day. Founded in 2001, the Stop TB Partnership is a United Nations hosted organisation that amplifies the voices of the people, communities, and countries affected by TB.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were present on the occasion.

In her address, Ditiu said that India has a high burden of TB but also the “best plan, ambition and great implementation of activities”. She also underlined the global welfare embrace of India’s G20 presidency and explained the importance of the theme – One World One Health. She said that India is on the road to ending TB by 2025 under the leadership of PM Modi. She said due to the efforts of countries like India, the number of people who are not getting diagnosis and treatment for TB has gone below three million for the first time in history. She praised India’s scale in tackling TB and the TB Free India initiative and expressed the belief that India would end TB by 2025.

She also informed about the UN high-level meeting on TB taking place on September 22 during the UN General Assembly in New York and also requested the Prime Minister’s presence in the meeting.

“We have one world, we have one air that we share. We share one air and we share whatever is in that air and tuberculosis is as well in that air. So we are here today because unfortunately we have a very high burden of TB in the world. We still have 4,400 people that die every single day of TB and 700 of them are children. We still have millions of people that are going every year undetected, untreated, undiagnosed. And every single person that is not detected and put on treatment can infect others,” Ditiu said.