India: ‘One in 6 women, more than one in 5 men want TB positive status of family member to remain secret’
Despite being a curable disease, TB can still be a stigmatizing illness, mainly due to people’s ignorance of its causes and transmission, states the NFHS report.
One in every six (16%) women and more than one in every five (23%) men have said that they would want the TB positive status of a family member to remain a secret, according to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21).
Despite being a curable disease, TB can still be a stigmatizing illness, mainly due to people’s ignorance of its causes and transmission, states the NFHS report.
Tuberculosis has re-emerged as a major public health problem in many parts of the world, often as a concomitant illness to HIV/AIDS. In most developing countries, TB continues to be a serious health threat even in the absence of HIV/AIDS due to the public health challenges posed by poor sanitation, poverty, and high illiteracy.
In India, the government’s aim has been to end TB by 2025 – five years ahead of the global Sustainable Development Goal of 2030. According to the NFHS-5 report, in India, 70 per cent of both women and men who have heard of TB correctly mentioned coughing or sneezing as a mode of transmission for TB.
However, more than three-fifths of the population that has heard of TB has some misconceptions regarding its transmission.
The proportion of women who have heard of TB has increased slightly from 87 per cent in 2015-16 to 93 per cent in 2019-21, while that in men has increased from 88 per cent to 91 per cent. The proportion of women who report that TB is spread through the air by coughing and sneezing has remained almost the same (from 69% in 2015-16 to 70% in 2019-21), whereas the proportion decreased slightly for men, from 72% in 2015-16 to 70% in 2019-21.
In the same period, the knowledge that TB can be cured increased slightly from 89 per cent to 90 per cent among women and from 91 per cent to 92 per cent among men, according to the NFHS-5 report, which was released recently.
Between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the overall prevalence of medically treated tuberculosis decreased from 305 persons per 100,000 to 222 persons per 100,000, and the prevalence among men decreased from 389 persons per 100,000 to 283 persons per 100,000. The prevalence among women decreased from 220 persons per 100,000 to 162 persons per 100,000.
The prevalence of medically treated TB is higher in households where cooking takes place inside the house, without a separate room for cooking (291 persons per 100,000), than in households where cooking takes place in a separate room of the house (178 persons per 100,000) or in a separate building (258 persons per 100,000). But it is highest of all in households cooking in other places not specified in the table (357 persons per 100,000), according to NFHS-5 data.
Among the states, the number of persons suffering from medically treated TB ranges from a low of 24 persons per 100,000 in Chandigarh to a high of 634 persons per 100,000 in Sikkim, 626 persons per 100,000 in Meghalaya, 624 persons per 100,000 in Mizoram, and 616 persons per 100,000 in Nagaland.
In addition to Chandigarh, two states have prevalence below 120 persons per 100,000: Haryana (105 persons per 100,000) and Chhattisgarh (112 persons per 100,000).
Source: The Indian Express
