- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Toddler among 4 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Thousands march for Palestinians ahead of Oct 7 anniversary
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
After Covid, India tries to get on top of tuberculosis
When Covid-19 ripped through India in 2020-21, several million people are thought to have died. Desperate efforts to stem the pandemic hurt the battle against another huge killer: tuberculosis.
India is the home to a quarter of the world's TB infections and an estimated half a million people died of the curable lung disease in 2020 in the South Asian nation -- a third of the global toll.
Because of the pandemic, global deaths from the "silent killer" rose in 2020 for the first time in more than a decade, reversing years of progress, the World Health Organization says.
In India, the number of new cases detected in 2020 actually fell by a quarter to around 1.8 million due to Covid restrictions and as the pandemic diverted resources.
Nearly two-thirds of people with TB symptoms did not seek treatment, according to a 2019-21 nationwide government survey released on World TB Day on Thursday.
Ashna Ashesh, 29, diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis four years ago, saw how patients, many isolated and jobless because of lockdowns, struggled for support.
"They were incredibly afraid... They were reaching out for any kind of information that could be offered about how to access tests and medication," the public health professional with the Survivors Against TB collective told AFP.
"The impact has been immense... Covid has set back the fight against TB quite significantly. A recovery plan for TB is critical, both in India and globally."
India now faces an uphill battle to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi's goal of ending the spread of TB by 2025, five years earlier than the UN's target.
Experts and survivors are calling for intensive grassroots campaigns to find "missing" cases, more vaccine funding and support to combat malnutrition, a major trigger for TB.
Kuldeep Singh Sachdeva from the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease said states need to increase services such as house-to-house visits and mass screenings.
"That's the only way now where you can eliminate TB," Sachdeva, who previously led the government's National Tuberculosis Elimination Program, told AFP.
- Silver lining -
Officially Covid has killed almost 520,000 Indians, but experts believe the true toll to be far higher.
The pandemic -- which saw Covid replace TB as the world's deadliest infectious disease -- did however have one silver lining: increased mask-wearing.
Sachdeva estimates this might have cut TB transmission by 20 percent. Additional diagnostic machines procured for Covid could be redeployed for TB, he added.
Mumbai -- a megapolis of 20 million people and a TB hotspot -- has rolled out a programme with young survivors such as Seema Kunchikorve, who was diagnosed with TB five years ago at 20, to keep current patients on track with medications.
"The treatment has a lot of (side) effects which patients can't take," Kunchikorve told AFP during a TB awareness play staged at a school in India's biggest slum Dharavi.
Vijay Chavan, who treats patients with drug-resistant TB at a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) clinic in Mumbai, said the Covid battle had shown the way to fight the older pandemic.
At the clinic, which treats children as young as five, patients spend hours undergoing check-ups beside brightly coloured wallpapers featuring famous comic characters, before collecting a large tray of pills for their treatments.
"If there is a political will for TB, just like Covid, it definitely will give us good results," he told AFP.
O.M.Souza--AMWN