The report says 4 countries accounted for more than half of the global number of people estimated to have developed multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in 2024
India has registered one of the steepest declines in tuberculosis (TB) incidence worldwide, reducing new cases by 21% between 2015 and 2024, according to the World Health Organization’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2025.
It notes that TB incidence in India fell from 237 per lakh population in 2015 to 187 per lakh in 2024, almost double the global average decline of 12%.
This decline places India among the best-performing high-burden countries, driven by an aggressive national response combining technological innovation, decentralised care, and extensive community engagement.
Despite this progress, India continues to account for a quarter (25%) of all global TB cases, the WHO report said. Together with Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Bangladesh, India forms part of the eight countries responsible for two-thirds of global TB infections.
The WHO report also found that India accounted for 28% of global TB deaths and 32% of multidrug-resistant TB cases in 2024, highlighting the scale of the challenge the country continues to face. “Most of the people who develop TB disease each year are in 30 high TB burden countries: they accounted for 87% of the global total in 2024,” the report said.
It added, “The top eight (67% of the worldwide total) were India (25%), Indonesia (10%), the Philippines (6.8%), China (6.5%), Pakistan (6.3%), Nigeria (4.8%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.9%) and Bangladesh (3.6%).”
According to the report, four countries accounted for more than half of the global number of people estimated to have developed multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in 2024. This includes India (32%), China (7.1%), the Philippines (7.1%), and the Russian Federation (6.7%).
In 2024, the report said, 69% of the global number of deaths caused by TB among HIV-negative people occurred in the WHO African and South-East Asia regions. “India alone accounted for 28% of deaths globally. The WHO African and South-East Asia regions accounted for 71% of the combined total number of deaths caused by TB among people with and without HIV; India accounted for 25% of such deaths.”
India Leads in Case Detection and Treatment
India’s “innovative case-finding approach”—characterised by widespread use of molecular diagnostics, digital surveillance tools, and community-based screening—has significantly improved treatment coverage. According to the report, treatment coverage surged to over 92% in 2024, compared to 53% in 2015.
Out of an estimated 27 lakh TB cases in 2024, 26.18 lakh patients were diagnosed, marking a near-closure of the “missing cases” gap—from an estimated 15 lakh unreported cases in 2015 to less than one lakh last year.
Under the government’s flagship TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, the treatment success rate rose to 90% in 2024, higher than the global average of 88%.
Sustained Progress, But Challenges Remain
WHO commended India’s advancements in diagnosis and treatment coverage but cautioned that persistent social and economic barriers could slow progress towards the government’s TB elimination target.
The report highlighted that India’s “updated cause-of-death data from the Sample Registration System (SRS) for two years (2020 and 2022) were incorporated into the country-specific dynamic model that is used to produce TB incidence and mortality estimates, following their official publication in 2025″.
“The 2024 surveillance data met the coverage and quality criteria used by WHO to determine whether routine surveillance data can be used to estimate the incidence of RR-TB and were reported to WHO following extensive data validation by the country’s National TB Elimination Programme,” the report said.