AI, Advanced Testing Key to Speed Up India's TB Elimination Drive: Experts at AIIMS Bhubaneswar Conclave

Bhubaneswar: Strengthening Universal Drug Susceptibility Testing (UDST), improving early detection of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), and adopting artificial intelligence (AI)-based diagnostic tools can significantly accelerate India's TB elimination efforts, experts said at a two-day national conference that began at AIIMS Bhubaneswar on Thursday.

The conference and policy dialogue on rapid tuberculosis detection and eradication has been jointly organised by AIIMS Bhubaneswar and the Policy Resilience Foundation (PRF). It has brought together policymakers, clinicians, scientists, researchers, programme officers and public health experts to discuss strategies for strengthening TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment and programme implementation.

Fighting TB

Addressing the inaugural session, Dr Digambar Behera, President of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), said India continues to bear the world's highest TB burden and that early detection of drug-resistant TB remains a major challenge. He stressed the need for advanced diagnostic technologies before treatment begins so that clinicians can prescribe the most appropriate drugs, leading to better treatment outcomes and stronger TB control.

Executive Director and CEO of AIIMS Bhubaneswar Dr Ashutosh Biswas said the institute has been supporting the country's TB elimination programme through research, innovation, skill development and policy support. He said the conference would help identify grassroots-level challenges and explore practical solutions to improve disease diagnosis, treatment delivery and patient outcomes.

The conference will deliberate on issues affecting TB diagnosis and treatment in remote, tribal and other hard-to-reach areas of Odisha. Discussions will focus on gaps in case detection, sample collection, laboratory testing, reporting, treatment initiation, follow-up and outcome monitoring.

Nandish R. Pithani, Founder of the Policy Resilience Foundation, said the deliberations would also examine issues such as diagnostic delays, sample transportation, reporting systems, treatment initiation and patient follow-up to strengthen TB programme implementation.

India Winning The Fight

Data presented during the inaugural session showed that annual TB cases in India declined by 21 per cent between 2015 and 2024, while TB-related deaths fell by 28 per cent during the same period.

According to the organisers, more than 200 million vulnerable people have been screened for tuberculosis under the TB-Free India campaign since December 7, 2024. The programme has also deployed AI-based cough screening, AI-assisted interpretation of chest X-rays and predictive analytics to identify high-risk individuals, contributing to the diagnosis of over 2.8 million TB patients.

The inaugural session was attended by AIIMS Bhubaneswar Medical Superintendent Dr Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, Head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care Dr Prashant Raghab Mohapatra, who is also the organising chairperson, and organising secretary Dr Saurin Bhuyan, among others.