Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) [India], March 24 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said Tuberculosis (TB) will lose and India and the world will win, adding that while the global target to end TB is 2030, India is working on eliminating it five years earlier, by 2025.

Inaugurating the One World TV Summit 2023 in Varanasi on Friday, PM Modi said that the India of today is known for achieving its goals and the government has taken a pledge to eliminate TB from the country.

PM Modi also launched TB Preventive Treatment (TPT), TB Free Panchayat Initiative, Family Centered Care Model for TB and India's Annual TB Report 2023 during the event. He also virtually laid the foundation stone of the BSL Lab Metropolitan Public Health Surveillance Unit in Varanasi.

Making a special mention of India's global role in the fight against TB, he said efforts made in this direction since 2014 should be known to the whole world today because it is a new model in the global fight against TB.

"We had called upon the people of the country to make Nikshay Mitras join the TB-free India campaign. After this campaign, about 10 lakh TB patients were adopted by the common citizens of the country. Children aged 10-12 years are also taking forward the fight against TB by becoming Nikshay Mitra. Many children have broken their piggy banks and adopted TB patients. This financial support of Nikshay Mitras for TB patients has reached above Rs 1000 crore," he said.

PM Modi also said a total of 75 lakh TB patients have benefitted from the Direct Bank Transfer (DBT) of Rs 2000 crore sent to their accounts since the launch of the scheme by the Central government in 2018.

"For the screening of patients and their treatment, we have linked them with the Ayushman Bharat scheme. The number of laboratories across the country has been increased for free TB testing," he said.

"Today, a TB-free panchayat has started where all the elected public representatives of villages will together take a resolution that every patient in the village will be kept healthy. We have also started three months of treatments for TB prevention instead of six months course. We have created the Nikshay portal to track the care needed for each patient," PM Modi added.

He also appealed to the people to raise awareness of TB patients as many tended to hide this disease from the public. (ANI)