In 2016, tuberculosis (TB) killed more people per 100,000 in Uttar Pradesh (58) than any other state in India, according to state-level estimates of the burden of disease published in a new report put together by the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Public Health Foundation of India, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Tuberculosis is an infectious, curable airborne disease. In 2016, India had 2.7 million new cases of TB, estimated the World Health Organization, as IndiaSpend reported in November 2017. It was the eighth leading cause of disability-affected life years or DALYS, a measure of both premature mortality and disability--in India in 2016, the new data show.

The second highest death rate from TB was in Assam where 43 people per 100,000 died of TB, followed by Gujarat (42 per 100,0000) and Rajasthan (41 per 100,000), the new data show. The lowest death rates were in the states of Kerala (8), Goa (11) and Tripura (16).

Mostly poorer states--Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam--had a higher death rate than the country average (33 per 100,000). The only exception was Gujarat.

“For almost all states of India, the burden of tuberculosis is much higher than the average burden for the similar socio-demographic level globally,” the new report said. “The state with the lowest burden, Kerala, has twice the per capita burden as Sri Lanka and China, and India as a whole has about 10 times the per capita burden from tuberculosis as either of these two countries.”

Tuberculosis leads to higher DALYS in males than females, the report said. It was the sixth leading cause of DALYs for males and 11th for females of all communicable and noncommunicable diseases measured in the report.

Source: India: Health of the Nation’s States: The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative.
Note: Data for 2016.

(Shah is a writer/editor with IndiaSpend and FactChecker.)

Shreya Shah