Maharashtra detects 6,111 new cases in first 35 days of Centre’s TB-Free India campaign

Maharashtra has reported 6111 new tuberculosis TB cases within the first 35 days of the Centrersquos 100Day TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan while 11091 villages across the state have been identified as highrisk through an artificial intelligencebased assessment system Public Health Minister Prakash Abitkar informed the Legislative Assembly on WednesdayIn a written reply the minister said that villages in Nagpur 482 Yavatmal 539 Amravati 504 Nashik 488 and Raigad 488 were among those flagged as highrisk under the Centrersquos AIdriven mapping exercise PTI reportedNo region found to have unusually high TB burdenAbitkar however rejected claims that tuberculosis prevalence was exceptionally high in Vidarbharsquos cottongrowing districts or tribaldominated regionsUnder the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme NTEP riskbased screening active case finding and patient registration through the Nikshay portal are being conducted regularly across all districts he saidldquoNo specific geographical area in Maharashtra has been found to have an abnormally high burden of tuberculosisrdquo the minister stated reported PTILatur Ahilyanagar report significant case numbersSharing districtwise data Abitkar said Latur recorded 729 new TB cases between January and April 2026 At present 1020 patients in the district are undergoing treatmentIn Ahilyanagar 4493 new TB cases and 92 deaths were reported during 2025 Between January and May 2026 the district recorded another 1846 TB cases and 10 deaths according to the ministerrsquos replyState equipped with AIpowered diagnostic infrastructureThe minister also dismissed concerns over delays in diagnosis and treatment due to shortages of advanced testing equipmentHe informed the House that Maharashtra currently has 117 AIenabled handheld Xray machines 171 CBNAAT machines and 746 TrueNAAT machines deployed across the stateOver 900 advanced TB diagnostic machines availableWith a total of 917 advanced diagnostic machines available Maharashtra has strengthened its capacity for early detection and treatment of tuberculosis Abitkar said adding that the state continues to intensify screening and monitoring efforts under the national campaign aimed at eliminating TBMumbai records over 54000 TB cases in 2025 cure rate improves to 81 per centEarlier the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC reported that the cure rate of drugresistant tuberculosis DRTB patients in the city has doubled over the past eight years reaching 81 per cent reflecting improvements in diagnosis treatment and patient support systemsAccording to the BMCrsquos Health Department Mumbai recorded a total of 54390 tuberculosis TB cases in 2025 of which 48835 patients were city residents Of the total cases 40 per cent were extrapulmonary TB 6 per cent were paediatric cases and 8 per cent were drugresistant TB casesThis yearrsquos World Tuberculosis Day theme ldquoYes We can end TB Led by countries Powered by peoplerdquo underscores the importance of strong government leadership and community participation in eliminating the diseaseEnhanced diagnostics and infrastructureThe civic body said significant efforts have been made to strengthen diagnostic facilities across Mumbai Currently health centres are equipped with 45 CBNAAT machines and 34 portable TruNAAT devices enabling free and accurate detection of TB and rifampicinresistant TBAdditionally the Central TB Division is set to provide four PathoDetect machines for advanced detection of TB and resistance to key drugs At present two such machines are operational at Sir JJ Hospital and the Intermediate Reference Laboratory IRL at GTB Hospital In 2025 alone nearly two lakh molecular NAAT tests were conductedThe Culture and Drug Susceptibility Testing DST laboratory at GTB Sewri TB Hospital has been upgraded to an IRL while a new TB laboratory has been made operational at Kasturba HospitalWith PTI inputs