Counting Tuberculosis Patients in India: A Continued Imbroglio?

Abstract

Globally, estimating the TB incidence in the countries has always been difficult and challenging. Measuring TB incidence at a National level was never possible because it involves large number of patients in a cohort for long duration and involves huge costs for logistics.2The World Health Organization (WHO) publishes the Global Tuberculosis report every year which includes the TB incidence, prevalence, mortality and other indicators of all the countries. The following methods were used to estimate the TB incidence in the countries. (a) Case no-tification data combined with expert opinion about case detection gaps (b) Results of National Prevalence Surveys (c) Notification in high income countries adjusted by standard factors to account under-diagnosis and under-reporting (d) Results from capture and re-capture studies.