Will Parliament take notice of India’s TB problem

Cape Town:

India may have the largest number of people living with Tuberculosis (TB) but the most infectious disease lacks space in the Parliament of India.

In their findings presented at the 46th Union World conference on lung health in Cape Town experts revealed that out of the 5.4 per cent questions asked on health related issues during the five year tenure of 15th Lok Sabha, only 1.2 per cent were related to the contagious disease.

During their presentation at the conference, experts from India revealed that out of the total 79401 questions, 4283 (5.4 per cent) questions were on health related topics. However, only 1.2 per cent (52 questions) pertained to TB.

Significantly, in Rajya Sabha, 10,025 questions were raised during 2014 that included 556 (5.5 per cent) questions on health but questions pertaining to TB were mere 17 (3 per cent). They also disclosed that out of 795 parliamentarians in both houses, 61 (7.6 per cent) raised questions on the contagious disease.

Ironically, only 8 parliamentarians (1 per cent of total) asked repeat questions on TB during the period of the review.

Speaking to this newspaper, Sashikant Nayak, technical consultant with The Union- who presented the findings said that, “the issue is of highest priority and requires space both inside and outside the parliament. Ironically this doesn’t seem to be the case,” he said.

The objective of the paper he said was to analyse how TB as an issue has penetrated in to both Upper and Lower house of the Indian Parliament.

Review of 69 questions of both houses revealed that 26 per cent (18) were on the National programme on TB, 20 per cent (14) were on diagnosis and treatment, followed by TB epidemiology, the XDR TB-which is the most complicated for of TB attracted only 10 questions (15 per cent), drugs and vaccine 12 per cent (8).

Interestingly, only 2 questions raised in RS were related to TB and nutrition and 2 questions were asked on policy and research. Experts call for action to involve more Parliamentarians both inside and outside the parliament.

Significantly India has the highest TB burden country of the globe that accounts for 26 per cent of TB cases with an estimated incidence of 2.1 million and 2.6 million prevalence per annum. About 1.4 million TB patients were put on treatment in 2013.

However, one third of the cases are still missing from the national notification system. TB though is curable but remains the World’s deadliest infectious disease claiming 1.5 million lives each year.

Earlier the WHO had said that only one in four (26 per cent) of the 4,80,000 people estimated to have developed multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) in 2014 was diagnosed with only 1,11,000 people (23 per cent) started on treatment.