Why tackle Tuberculosis ?
Potential economic benefits for India Effective TB control can help break the cycle of poverty and disease. It cures people and returns them to active, productive life, which in turn benefits their children and contributes to the economic and social development of their country. As more people are cured, the cycle of transmission is broken and fewer people are infected. Ultimately this leads to fewer cases of active TB. TB control is rated by the World Bank as one of the most cost-effective health intervention because of its potential to avert a large percentage of the global disease, its low cost for each year of healthy life saved, the low cost per capita, and the potential impact on socially excluded and poor people. Ravindra Dholakia, Professor of Economics from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in an article, Potential Benefits of DOTS Strategy against TB in India, divides these into two broad categories: • Pure social welfare increasing effects of DOTS, which do not gener
