Health Matters Newsletter: TB Tales: journey to slay bacteria

On the gains made and the path ahead for TB detection and care in India, climate change impacting physical and mental health, the World Happiness Report, and more

One of the greatest public health challenges is still amongst us – Tuberculosis. Despite gains in diagnosis and treatment over the last few years (India has seen a 21% drop in mortality since 2015, and incidence has dropped, while case detection has improved), the country is still home to over a quarter of all TB cases. The TB Mukth Bharat aim has been set apace, and through the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme, efforts were made to increase case detection, provide free treatment and modern combinations, besides nutrition support. However, with the intervention of a pandemic the 2025 goal of TB elimination in India was missed. The path ahead might be rocky, but it must be endured for substantial gains to be achieved in TB detection and care in India. 

At The Hindu, fully cognisant of the goal and the hurdles ahead, we have endeavoured to present a package of stories that analyse the issues threadbare. The result is a sterling coverage of TB quite unparalleled in any other media (even if we say so ourselves). 

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan sets the context right by stressing on the advantages in front of us. At the heart of the most encouraging progress in the area has been The evolving diagnostic landscape for tuberculosis and the wholly Indian initiatives that have sustained it. As she says: “The World Health Organization (WHO) formally recommended the use of new near point-of-care molecular tests for diagnosing TB. WHO also endorsed the use of tongue swab samples for TB testing and sputum pooling strategies to potentially improve testing efficiencies at scale. These are the latest developments in what has been an unusually remarkable decade for the TB diagnostic landscape, a decade when new technologies have not only emerged but been tested, swiftly recommended and utilised to advance global efforts to eliminate TB.” To read on, click on the link.

As we fete the technology, it would be amiss to not recognise the value or contributions of an army of foot soldiers – TB champions. As Dr. Nalini Krishnan and Anupama Srinivasan recount the experience of a  decade of building India’s TB Champion movement it becomes clear that humans are still at the centre of any public health response. TB Champions are survivors who are passionate, motivated and committed individuals, firm in their conviction that they have an important role to play in India’s response to TB. They have rendered what could be a lonely disease into a community-supported recovery process.

The treatment process has also migrated from disease-specific care to person-centred care, over the years, say Dr. Ramya Ananthakrishnan and Anupama Srinivasan. TB rarely presents as a standalone disease in an individual. Many people with TB have other comorbidities or disease conditions that they must simultaneously cope with, while being on treatment for TB. Therefore, treating TB alone is not enough. “We must treat the person and not the disease,”the authors underline.

Nutrition, it has emerged, is a core component of treatment for TB. Some of the pioneering work on this in India has been done by the couple Dr. Madhavi and Anurag Bhargava. They write for us: The need to integrate nutrition in TB care. They list lessons from the RATIONS trial, done in Jharkhand with support from the Indian Council of Medical Research. It was the first such trial of a food-based intervention aimed at reducing new TB cases in TB-affected families, and improving treatment outcomes for patients with TB.

Bindu Shajan Perappadan brought to fore another key aspect of the TB story in India – the feminine angle. In Women and TB in India: a story of deprivation, discrimination and debt, she stresses the unique factors that still keep women from seeking treatment for TB, thus rendering them vulnerable, but also leaving a substantial portion of the India cohort from interventions. Women in India face problems from the very beginning of their TB journey: late diagnoses or misdiagnoses are compounded by stigma, limited mobility, lack of finances and multiple barriers to care.

Dr. R. Thara spoke of the need to address the mental health requirements of persons with TB. At least one in seven Indians experience a mental health condition at some point in their lives. In people with infectious diseases like TB or HIV, this increases to anywhere between one-third to a half of those affected. TB takes a toll on not only physical but also mental health, either in the form of definite diagnosable conditions like depression, anxiety or psychoses or as emotional suffering worsened by social stigma.

Chapal Mehra and Dr. Jai Mullerpattan write of the dangers that drug resistant TB pose to the successful elimination that the country is planning 

Athira Elssa Johnson brings news of the latest research that has identified new mechanisms to detect and weaken TB bacteria, that have the potential to emerge as effective tools in the armamentarium. 

Dr. Swathi Krishna Njarekkattuvalappil and Dr. Christianez Ratna Kiruba ask if  we are in a paradigm shift in our #endTB response. Apart from strengthening diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities, eliminating drug shortages and stock-outs and reducing deaths through differentiated care, we need to enhance our engagement with social determinants through social protections and nutrition support, to realise our TB elimination goals in the near future, they recommend.

Moving on to the other pressing issues in health care, climate change naturally comes up on top. A recent Lancet study said: Climate change could drive millions globally into physical inactivity by 2050. Extreme temperatures do have the tendency to upend human activity and be disruptive. Yet another study published in the Lancet Global Health Journal affirms that Climate action could help prevent over 13.5 million deaths due to air pollution by 2050. Rashikkha Ra Iyer  writes of an interesting phenomenon: The rising tide of eco‑anxiety among India’s youth: a call for climate resilience.

The West Asia crisis, invented and perpetrated as an attack by Israel and the United States on Iran, has impacted people across the world. As precious oil reserves cannot make their way past the Hormus Strait, we have slowly realised the way this has disrupted our daily lives, from scarcity of LPG for cooking cylinders to reduction in inputs for fertilisers and other raw materials for industries and agriculture, this war, launched by tinpot dictators has truly set nations at their most vulnerable. At the health desk, we also quickly put together an article on how this West Asia conflict is affecting medical tourism in India. Clearly movement of patients and doctors is out, and people have taken recourse to tele consultations, again made popular during COVID. The effect on the Indian economy will soon be know, and it will not be pretty. 

An issue that has been agitating the LGBTQ+ community in India all of last week emerged as a result of the amendments proposed to the Transgender Act. Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar introduced the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, proposing widespread amendments to the law enacted in 2019. Ashna Butani and Abhinay Lakshman explain why there is so much opposition to the Bill, which the trans community feels it is a great injustice to them and contains highly restrictive definitions, instead of broadening the existing legal concepts on the issue.

Continuing the COVID story, since lessons from that pandemic are still relevant, we report: More than 150,000 uncounted COVID-19 deaths occurred early in the pandemic. Further, the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization has recommended two doses of the routine COVID-19 vaccination per year, six months apart, for highest risk groups including the oldest adults, and older adults with significant comorbidities or severe obesity. This is a recommendation to countries. 

The tail piece of the week has written itself this time Of all the things that is impinging on humans’ ability to be happy is the very device/apps that they picked up to keep happy. But it looks like the digital landscape is quietly making a generation less happy. According to the latest World Happiness Report 2026, heavy social media use seems to be contributing to a drop in well-being among young people in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, especially among girls, according to the report’s findings. Serena Josephine M.reports here.

Our ever-expanding list of health explainers, has spread its wings wider and farther this week: 

Have you been watching our Health Wrap podcast? We’d highly recommend it as an easy way to catch up on all the top health care sector stories for the week. 

This week, in our 25th episode we’ve moved out of our studio to shoot live in the clinic of Dr. Preetham Krishnamurthi, interventional cardiologist. He tells us how to get bystander Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation right.

In our All You Need to Know series, Meenakshy S., features the strange auto-brewery syndrome 

Here is a story exploring Why ORS is not used enough in India, and why it should be.

This story tells you about Restless Legs Syndrome?

Dr. Alok Kukarni takes us Beyond the city clinic: why rural India’s mental health is a development issue

Dr. Anusha Venkataraman explains the  hidden burden of eye cancer in India and the cost of looking away

Dr. Dinesh Arab paints a clear picture of what the 2026 U.S. cholesterol guidelines mean for everyone

Did you know poor oral health could affect your thinking and memory? Dr. Roma Haider explains.

Priscilla Jebaraj takes a shot at explaining the Supreme Court juedgement on paid maternity leave for adoptive mothers. 

Dr. Pinak Dasgupta writes on How early detection and newer treatments are helping battle colorectal cancer

Tamil Nadu has, for years, been at the forefront of health care innovations. We recognise the latest two:  Tamil Nadu adopts single-use haemodialysis policy to improve patient safety and Dennis S. Jesudasan’s article on mental health policy for educational institutions spells out preventive measures in the State.

There are more articles on health care on the website that you might also read, if you have the time. Here are links to a few of them: 

Our edits on the On the health crisis in India’s prisons; on the Supreme court case on maternity for adoptive mothers and paternity rights, and Dannell D. Boatman in The Conversation Cancer vaccines could transform treatment and prevention – but misinformation about mRNA vaccines threatens their potential

Doctors warn against rising trend of using AI for diagnosis and self-prescription

Study presents framework for detecting early sign of diabetes from smartwatch dat

Maharashtra to set up Task force as child safety efforts against internet use falling short.

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