• Union Minister for Health released the annual TB Report 2020. He also released a Joint Monitoring Mission (JMM) report, a manual on Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to TB patients under NIKSHAY system, a Training Module, and the quarterly newsletter NIKSHAY Patrika.

The key achievements listed in the Report include:

• Around 24.04 Lakh TB patients have been notified in 2019. This amounts to a 14% increase in TB notification as compared to the year 2018.

• Achieving near-complete on-line notification of TB patients through the NIKSHAY system.

• Private sector notifications increased by 35% with 6.78 lakh TB patients notified.

• Due to easy availability of molecular diagnostics, the proportion of children diagnosed with TB increased to 8% in 2019 compared to 6% in 2018.

• Provision of HIV testing for all notified TB patients increased from 67% in 2018 to 81% in 2019.

• Expansion of treatment services has resulted in a 12% improvement in the treatment success rate of notified patients. For 2019 it is 81% compared to 69% in 2018.

• NIKSHAY also expanded the provision of four Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) schemes of the programme including of Nikshay Poshan Yojana (NPY) to TB patients.

Ranking of states:

• For the first time Central TB Division (CTD) introduced a quarterly ranking on TB elimination efforts by all the states and UTs.

• In the categories of larger states with more than 50 lakh population, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh were awarded as best performing States.

• In the category of smaller states with less than 50 lakh population, Tripura and Nagaland were awarded.

• In the category of Union Territory, Dadara and Nagar Haveli, and Daman & Diu were chosen as the best performers.