India: Tuberculosis
International Development
Written answers and statements, 26 October 2009
Doug Naysmith (Bristol North West, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's support for the national tuberculosis programme in India in reducing the incidence of tuberculosis in that country.
Michael Foster (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for International Development; Worcester, Labour)
The Department for International Development's (DFID) support to India's National Tuberculosis Control Programme has been highly effective. The programme has averted an estimated 180,000 deaths a year since 2005. That is around 500 lives saved in India every day. DFID's support has helped put 1.5 million TB patients on treatment every year in India.
Our support has ensured that India has faced no drug shortage, despite having the most rapidly expanding TB programme in the world. By March 2006, the programme had been scaled up to cover the entire country. Since 1997, the success rate for TB treatment has tripled from 25 per cent. to 86 per cent. and TB deaths rates have been cut seven-fold from 29 per cent. to 4 per cent.