India has cut tuberculosis deaths by 38 per cent since 2015, faster than the global decline of 35 per cent, according to the World Health Organization's Global Tuberculosis Report 2026, released on November 12.

Source: Hindu BusinessLine

The country's estimated TB mortality rate fell from 28 deaths per lakh population in 2015 to 18 per lakh in 2025. The government also reported a treatment success rate of 94 per cent among patients with drug-susceptible TB.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare via PIB

38%Fall in India's TB mortality since 2015
35%Global fall over the same period
28 to 18Deaths per lakh population, 2015 to 2025
94%Treatment success rate for drug-susceptible TB

Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda highlighted the findings on November 13 and restated the government's resolve for a TB-Mukt Bharat. The Health Ministry said the mortality estimates draw on the Registrar General of India's Sample Registration System, community-based verbal autopsy assessments and programme data from the Ni-kshay portal.

Under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, authorities screened more than 25 crore people between December 7, 2024 and November 8, 2026, conducting over 11 crore chest X-rays and more than 3 crore nucleic acid amplification tests, according to the ministry's account of the report.

The Indian Council of Medical Research's National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis conducted a nationally representative TB prevalence survey in 2025, which has been shared with the WHO.

Progress, not elimination

India still accounts for about a quarter of the world's new TB cases, so the mortality fall marks major progress under the National TB Elimination Programme rather than the end of the disease burden.

Sources: WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2026; Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (PIB); The Hindu BusinessLine.