Doctors, pharmacists, chemists and laboratory staff will face jail time if they fail to notify tuberculosis cases to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, according to a notification issued by the ministry on March 16. The government aims to eliminate tuberculosis by 2025. To do so, it plans to identify infected patients and also screen people who have been in contact with them for symptoms of the disease.

Rs 600-crore budget for nutrition support and aid of Rs 500 per month will do little to prevent undernutrition in TB patients, say public health specialists.

In his budget speech on Wednesday (February 1), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the government’s intention to eliminate five chronic diseases that affect poor people. “Government has therefore prepared an action plan to eliminate kala azar and filariasis by 2017, leprosy by 2018 and measles by 2020,” he said. “Elimination of tuberculosis by 2025 is also targeted.”

In seven out of every ten patients detected with drug-resistant Tuberculosis (TB) in Mumbai, four drugs out of the six-drug cocktail are ineffective, according to a study by doctors at PD Hinduja Hospital in Mahim which said that a new drug regime that looked at a patient’s unique requirements instead of a standard prescription for everyone, was needed to control the disease.

Maternal deaths in Mumbai have increased 40% over the past five years. Data from the civic body, which records these deaths every month, revealed that the top cause of maternal deaths in Mumbai is tuberculosis, an infectious disease that is curable. The finding assumes significance given the resurgence of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the city and other parts of the country.

Last week, Amitabh Bachchan revealed he had tuberculosis (TB) in 2000. But the statement from one of the nation’s most venerated actors came too late for Dilip Kadam, 25, who ended his life at Sewri’s GTB (Group of Tuberculosis) Hospitals in October. He slashed his throat with a razor. Kadam, who was battling drug- resistant TB, was the third patient this year to commit suicide at the hospital.

Out of every four city children diagnosed with TB in the past five years, three were girls, data from the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) showed.

An increasing number of Mumbaiites are being detected with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

Here is some worrying news.