New Delhi: As today is remembered to World Tuberculosis Day all over the globe, President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Modi on Saturday urged all related authorities and concerned agencies to play the role to the fullest extent and help eliminate the disease from the country by the year 2025.

“On World Tuberculosis Day, I call upon all stakeholders to come together to fight tuberculosis. Tuberculosis continues to be one of the biggest public health challenges in our country. The time has come for all of us to join hands to eliminate tuberculosis from India by 2025,” the president said on his twitter handle.

“In the spirit of this year’s World Tuberculosis Day theme of ‘Wanted: Leaders for a tuberculosis-free world’, I urge citizens and organizations to take the lead in the movement to end tuberculosis. A tuberculosis-free world is a wonderful service to humanity,” Modi said in a twitter post.

He also said that the government is consistent in its efforts to make India tuberculosis-free.

“While the world has set a target of 2030 for tuberculosis elimination, we in India want to become tuberculosis-free by 2025! At the recent Delhi End Tuberculosis Summit, I spoke more about the subject,” he said in another tweet attaching a piece of news report of about his speech on tuberculosis on 13 March.

The World Tuberculosis Day is observed around the globe on 24^th March 24 of every year so that the public may be brought to the notice regarding the devastating health, social and economic consequences of tuberculosis and to further efforts to end the global epidemic.

The date marks the day in 1882 when Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes and spreads tuberculosis, which opened the window towards diagnosing and curing this dreadful disease.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which is caused, usually, by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis in general, affects the lungs of a human being, but sometimes it may also take a toll on other parts of the body.

Tuberculosis is spread with the help of air present in the atmosphere when the people suffering from it carrying the bacterium in their lungs cough, spit, sneeze or speak.

Prevention of Tuberculosis involves screening those affected people who are at high risk. Then after detection, treatment procedure is followed involving use of multiple antibiotics over a long period of time.

About one-third of the total world population is considered to be effected with Tuberculosis. New infections are reported in about 1% of the population every year. In 2011 alone, there were over 10 million cases of active Tuberculosis which cost the life of 1.3 million people. To prevent further spread of such a dreaded disease, the government of India has generated many schemes and set up many agencies that cater to the needs of general public.

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