Reviewing India’s End-TB strategy: after the 2025 deadline.
Conversation between Dr Yogesh Jain and Dr Sundararaman.
(with facilitation by Dr Ismail Zubi)
In an earlier conversation two years back, we had discussed India’s aspiration to end TB by 2025, five years the SDG 2030 goal. We had also expressed concerns on many of the both strategies being adopted. Now with five years-experience of implementation behind us, we would like to revisit both targets and strategies in this conversation with Yogesh Jain, who has been following this programme both as a public health practitioner and a health policy advocate.
TS: Let us begin by recalling global and national targets of the End TB strategy and the progress made.
YJ: There are two sets of tuberculosis control targets- one is for year 2030 as part of WHO aligning the TB control programme with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And another is WHO’s articulation of a longer-term aspiration of ending tuberculosis as a public health problem by 2035. More attention has been focussed on SDG-linked 2030 targets.
The SDG-2030 targets include a 90 percent reduction in TB deaths and an 80 percent reduction in TB incidence as compared to the 2015 baseline, primarily through prevention. These were ambitious targets. India chose to advance these timelines and announced that it would achieve the 2030 targets by 2025. As of now, India is about 50 percent of the way towards the WHO targets.
It is important to clarify here that WHO never spoke of “elimination” of tuberculosis. What WHO stated was the goal of ending TB as a public health problem by 2035, which they defined as reducing TB incidence to about 10 cases per million population. At present, TB incidence in India is roughly 1,900 to 2,000 per million. Achieving 10 per million would therefore require a dramatic and unprecedented reduction, largely driven by prevention.
WHO further suggested that if countries could reach 10 per million by 2035, incidence might decline further to less than 1 per million by around 2050. Given current trends, that appears highly unrealistic
TS: When India speaks of ending TB by 2025, does it refer to the 2035 target of 10 per million or the longer-term idea of 1 per million?
YJ: India never formally committed to the 2035 or 2050 benchmarks. The only explicit commitment made by the Government of India was to achieve the WHO-SDG 2030 targets by 2025, which is defined as an 80% reduction in TB incidence and deaths compared to the 2015 baseline, and 100% reduction in financial hardship. This would have been and incidence rate of 20 cases per 100,000 population. At present, we are still close to 190 per 100,000.
TS: There is a view within government that even if elimination by 2025 was unrealistic, announcing such a target helped by creating urgency and accelerating the programme. It is also states that although the targets were not met, the rate of decline improved because of this aggressive goal-setting. How do you see that?
YJ: This argument needs to be unpacked carefully. I agree that a campaign mode can sometimes energise systems more than slow, incremental planning. But tuberculosis is neither a new problem nor short-term. It has been a major cause of death for centuries, including in recent decades. In that context, declaring that India would achieve by 2025 what other countries were aiming for by 2030 feels more like aggressive posturing than grounded planning. I often use the analogy of someone setting their clock 15 minutes ahead in the hope that it will make them more punctual. Many people do this, but we also know it doesn’t really work.
My concern is that such posturing can actually undermine serious, phased, and realistic efforts. When ambitious targets are missed, it risks demoralising people working within the system. While the hope is that targets will push people to perform better, failure can have the opposite effect.
Now that we are in early 2026 and we know the target has not been met, we have to ask: did this strategy genuinely improve outcomes, or has it created frustration and fatigue? It’s like repeatedly making an unrealistic to-do list and failing to complete it—you may eventually lose confidence in your own planning ability. And then when tightly measured against ambitious targets, there is always the risk of gaming the numbers. People want to appear successful, and that can distort reporting.
For a problem as complex as tuberculosis, I would have preferred a more serious, steady, and humble approach—one that acknowledged complexity, planned realistically, and avoided playing everything at the highest possible pitch.
TS: Let me take a step back. The optimism behind the WHO’s 2035 goal was based on a particular assumption. During COVID, massive investment led to rapid development of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments. A similar surge of investment in TB—also a respiratory disease—was expected to produce comparable breakthroughs, especially a new effective TB vaccine.
WHO projections even showed two curves: one based on existing technologies, and another assuming the arrival of transformative new tools, particularly a universal TB vaccine. Since several new technologies have now been introduced, I want to examine each of them and ask: have they made a meaningful difference? I have a list of these strategies and would like to go through them one by one.
YJ: If I may, before we go into individual technologies, I’d like to make a broader point. Tuberculosis is very different from an acute infection like COVID. It is not just a biomedical problem. The reasons it persists, and the reasons it is difficult to control, are deeply rooted in social, political, and economic conditions. We also have a long historical experience of TB as a chronic, disabling disease and a leading cause of death. Comparing TB control to the COVID response is therefore somewhat naïve. While aggressive campaign mode is attractive, it risks oversimplifying the problem. The techno-optimism that assumes new tools alone can end TB underestimates the importance of its underlying determinants. Key drivers include undernutrition, HIV, diabetes, alcohol use, smoking and tobacco, and occupational exposures such as silica dust. These are not problems that technology alone can fix.
Technologies helps reduce deaths through earlier diagnosis and better treatment. To some extent it reduces transmission. But significant reduction of the occurrence of TB requires action far beyond healthcare. When we discuss specific strategies, we must assess them through two lenses: first, whether they reduce deaths, and second, whether they meaningfully prevent new cases by addressing the deeper determinants of tuberculosis.
TS: With that caution in place, let me now take you through the strategies announced by the Government of India and the WHO to achieve TB elimination. For each of these strategies, we would like to understand three things: whether it was a valid strategy to begin with, whether it was implemented at the scale intended, and whether it delivered the results it was expected to. Let us start with improved medicines? Have the new medicines made a meaningful gain?.
YJ: There is substantial progress with medicines for multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). A new, short six-month, all-oral regimen for MDR-TB is now available and that is something that should be both celebrated and urgently scaled up. We also have a new oral regimen for treatment of latent TB infection, but more on that later. However, as of now for the management of drug-sensitive TB which forms the bulk of cases, there are no new treatment options, that reduce duration of treatment, side effects or effectiveness. Nor for extra-pulmonary TB. These are significant gaps.
TS: Vaccines for TB control was the next big hope. Indeed, the inspiration behind WHO’s 2035 target was in anticipation of a vaccine becoming available by 2026. Where are we with that. The Government plans to introduce BCG vaccines for adults- is that going to help?
YJ: At present, the only available TB vaccine is the BCG vaccine. A national initiative has been launched to administer BCG to adults who are considered at high risk of developing tuberculosis, such as those with undernutrition or diabetes. This programme is currently being implemented in 18 states. Considerable resources and personnel-time from the general health system are being diverted to carry out this activity, yet the evidence base supporting adult BCG vaccination for prevention of tuberculosis is extremely weak. Acknowledging this, the government projects this as a research exercise. Conclusions will depend on data that are yet to emerge. Even the expectations are modest. The hope is that it might reduce TB incidence by about 20–30 percent, and even that may be optimistic.
As for new vaccines, none have reached the stage of programmatic use. There are candidates in the pipeline, including newer versions of BCG, and two vaccine trials are ongoing, but none have delivered results so far. Given all this, placing major hope on vaccines at this moment is unrealistic. Historically, vaccines have shown effectiveness mainly in preventing childhood TB, not adult disease, as demonstrated by earlier BCG studies in India. Yes, it is possible that a new vaccine may perform better. But at present, we simply do not have evidence to support that optimism.
TS: The next major new strategy under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan (viz TB free India campaign, launched by the Prime Minister) was the shift toward molecular diagnostics, along with genomic testing for drug resistance. This is being recommended globally as well.
YJ: Molecular diagnostics are undoubtedly more sensitive diagnostic tests than sputum smear microscopy. They detect more cases of tuberculosis and represents an important technological advance. However, this shift comes with two major challenges. First, molecular testing requires substantial infrastructure and is significantly more expensive. Scaling it up across a country as large and diverse as India—with highly variable health systems—has been difficult. That said, India has invested heavily in this area, and the current scale-up in terms of machines and facilities is impressive.
The more concerning issue is that, in the process, sputum microscopy has been largely abandoned. National programme guidelines now restrict microscopy mainly to follow-up testing. This is a regressive step. We should never be in a situation where molecular tests are unavailable and sputum microscopy has been dismantled. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening in many parts of the country.
I am aware of several areas where sputum microscopy services have been withdrawn entirely. That is a serious mistake and needs to be called out.
TS: Just to clarify, are you stating that molecular diagnostics cannot replace sputum microscopy, completely- and both with remain required?
YJ: Correct. Molecular tests remain positive even when bacterial load is falling, so they cannot be used to assess treatment response. Sputum microscopy is essential for this purpose. Guidelines recommend sputum microscopy at one month and two months after starting treatment. This is a mandatory part of the treatment protocol. Before switching a patient to the continuation phase, sputum microscopy should be negative at the end of two months. If it is still positive, the intensive phase must be extended by another month. If positivity persists, the sample must be sent again for culture and drug sensitivity testing.
TS: This is deeply concerning. In many places where molecular diagnostics have been introduced, follow-up sputum microscopy has effectively disappeared. There appears to be a loss of understanding of its importance and a gradual erosion of microscopy skills. I also have anecdotal reports that in many places’ sputum microscopy is discouraged to show achievement of higher proportions of molecular diagnoses. This has serious implications for patient management. I have also observed field situations where the molecular testing is not working or too far away, but under pressure for the switch over, diagnostic microscopy has become unavailable, leading to a net decrease in access to diagnostics. Without this target-based pressure the shift would have happened quite naturally whenever the better tech became available. Poor top-down implementation seems to have converted an opportunity into a problem!!!
YJ: I would add one more point. Ideally, we would expect at least 80 percent of pulmonary TB diagnoses to be confirmed microbiologically, primarily through molecular testing. In reality, this figure is closer to 50 percent. The remaining cases are being diagnosed clinically, based on symptoms or chest X-ray findings, much like in the past. This means that despite advanced technologies, we are still relying heavily on presumptive diagnosis. That should concern us greatly.
TS: Another recent development has been the introduction of handheld X-ray machines and the use of artificial intelligence for reading chest X-rays. Would you consider this a boon or a bane? How should these technologies be viewed?
YJ: These technologies should be handled with care. They are only as good as the way they are implemented. From what I have seen in programme documents, a substantial number of handheld X-ray machines have been procured. I think they do have a role, especially in active case finding—taking diagnostics closer to people’s homes and identifying cases earlier.
That said, they cannot be game changers on their own. I would welcome their use, but only as an addition to existing diagnostic approaches, not as a replacement. AI-based interpretation can be useful in specific situations, particularly in childhood tuberculosis and in settings where trained radiologists are not available. However, it should remain an adjunct. I would not recommend AI to replace clinical judgement or a clinician’s own reading of the chest X-ray. It is a supportive technology, not a substitute.
TS: Let us now turn to the specific initiatives related to active case finding and the use of mobile vans. How do you assess this strategy?
YJ: A substantial number of people in the community have tuberculosis with mild symptoms or even no symptoms at all. These cases will never be detected through passive case finding alone. From that perspective, active case finding is important—but only under certain conditions.
Active case finding has traditionally been viewed with some caution because patients detected passively—those who seek care on their own when symptoms become troubling—tend to have much better treatment adherence. When people feel unwell and actively seek care, compliance with treatment is usually stronger.
My view is that active case finding should be prioritised after we have optimised care for those already diagnosed through passive detection. If we are not ensuring high-quality treatment and completion among people who have already entered the system, then expanding active case finding risks putting the cart before the horse.
At present, I worry that the programme’s increasing focus on active case finding may be coming at the cost of adequate care, follow-up, and treatment completion for patients who are already diagnosed.
TS: One of the drivers of active case finding is introduction of “missed cases” identified. Programmes are now reporting on this. The national prevalence survey (2021), showed that nearly two-thirds of people with bacteriologically confirmed TB were not part of the care cascade. In other words, they were neither diagnosed nor on treatment. If most patients with such frank symptoms had been missed, then improvements in diagnostic technology or therapeutics will not help. Active case finding was introduced to reduce such Reducing such missed cases. A large proportion of these missing cases are concentrated within a relatively small segment, less than 10 percent of the population defined by vulnerability. Such vulnerable groups include specific occupations, severe undernutrition, co-morbidities like HIV, diabetes, chronic bronchitis and silicosis, and social marginalisation as in migration, homelessness, poor overcrowded living spaces etc. These sections do not seek routine health services. Active case finding should have focused on these vulnerable groups. Instead, what often happens is that screening is conducted where it is easiest, among populations that already have reasonable health-seeking behaviour. Active case finding, in my view is essential to reach them.
YJ: I agree. The estimate of “missing cases” is derived from projected incidence figures—for example, if 26 lakh cases are expected but only 14 lakhs are on treatment, the remainder are labelled as missing. Locating these individuals requires a vulnerability-based approach, based on epidemiological data and a general screening is unlikely to pick it up. Screening in contacts of course does help. But a uniform screening to detect a quota or target of missing cases makes little sense. Such active case detection needs to go along with more investment in management as these population groups would receive more intensive, supportive strategies and systems strengthening.
There is evidence around 40 percent of people with bacteriologically confirmed TB may be asymptomatic. Even when such individuals are detected, initiating and sustaining treatment is challenging. This information should just serve as a caution, that a simplistic, technical solution is less likely. For these reasons, I would insist on ensuring strong case-holding, follow-up, and treatment completion among those already diagnosed and bringing all those with active symptoms into the care cascade, before we expand detection further
TS: Moving on to the strategy called “Tuberculosis Preventive Therapy (TPT)”. Is this making a difference- can it lead to elimination of tuberculosis?
YJ: Most persons who get infection, do not develop the disease. The bacteria lies dormant in the body, and in some may even get spontaneously eliminated. In only a small proportion does active tuberculosis develop. Since both infection and progression to active tuberculosis is more common in family contacts especially children, and under-nourished individuals or those with decreased immunity due to HIV, diabetes or chronic lung disease, treating such patients even when infection is latent can reduce incidence of tuberculosis. Now, preventive treatment, an oxymoron, is now elevated to a mass strategy, and being rolled out extensively across the country. This has many concerns. First, the numbers involved are enormous, raising questions about whom to treat and whom not to. Necessarily such treatment has to follow testing for active disease among those with latent infection which means a huge increase in burden of molecular testing, which is already over-stressed. If we start treatment for those without infection it is a wasteful exposure to the risks of drugs. If we miss active disease, often asymptomatic, then we are giving a sub-optimal regime that may lead to drug-resistance. Another major challenge is that asymptomatic individuals are unwilling to take medication with prominent side effects to prevent a disease that may or may not occur in the future. Personally, I am not a strong proponent of this approach at this stage.
TS: Much of the evidence suggesting that TB preventive therapy (TPT) reduces TB incidence is based on modelling studies. These models assume that about 90% of people with latent TB will be adequately detected and treated—an assumption that is clearly unrealistic. Even for active TB, treatment detection and completion rates are often around 80% or lower. If this assumption does not hold, the entire premise becomes weak. TPT is not like vaccination. As long as he/she remains in a community where TB transmission persists, reinfection is entirely possible, regardless of having completed preventive treatment.
The original understanding was that TPT would be effective only when two conditions were met: first, when case notification rates had fallen very low, and second, when all latent TB infections could be identified and treated simultaneously in a defined population. If both conditions are fulfilled, TPT may have a reasonable chance of success. This might be feasible in isolated settings such as island populations—for example, the Maldives—where TB transmission can be controlled geographically. I do not see this as realistic in India at present.
Another critical issue is asymptomatic TB. We still need clarity on whether asymptomatic TB is infectious. If it is, then the distinction between latent and active disease becomes even more problematic.
There is also a serious risk of drug resistance. If a TB contact is treated with rifapentine alone under the assumption of latent infection, but the person actually has asymptomatic or early active TB, the treatment is incomplete. Treating active TB with a latent TB regimen risks inducing drug resistance. There are many anecdotal reports of such a problem in implementation In theory, preventive treatment should only be initiated after molecular diagnostic testing has conclusively ruled out active TB. In practice, however, this condition is often violated.
YJ: Without ruling out active tuberculosis, giving single-drug therapy can cause serious harm. Individuals with asymptomatic disease or mild symptoms may be incorrectly classified and treated, which is clinically unacceptable. Treating active TB with an inadequate regimen is a complete no-no. It will increase risk of drug-resistant TB developing. Either we should not start TB preventive treatment at all, or if we do, it must be under very strict conditions that can realistically be fulfilled within a defined geographic area.
TS: The recent strategy has increased the emphasis on management of co-morbidities. What is the progress on that?
YJ: The programme is doing relatively well with respect to HIV, but beyond that the consideration of co-morbidities has been very limited. Diabetes has become a major driver of tuberculosis in India. My colleague, Anurag Bhargava used the moniker ‘MDR-TB’ as standing for malnutrition, diabetes, and retrovirus, in poor India rather than Multi-Drug Resistant tuberculosis. While MDR-TB rates are relatively low, but diabetes prevalence is rather high, and TB detection among people with diabetes is still poor. We do not give diabetes the importance it deserves in TB control. I would not be surprised if only less than 25percent of diabetics are screened for TB
Beyond diabetes other critical NCD comorbidities are largely ignored—smoking, silicosis, occupational silica exposure, chronic respiratory disease. A major part of the problem is that the National TB Program and the NCD program function in silos and do not effectively communicate with each other. Unless every chronic bronchitis and silicosis gets good diagnosis and care we will continue to miss TB.
And of course the most common co-morbidity of adult tuberculosis is adult under-nutrition. Yet adult undernutrition has consistently been brushed under the carpet, largely because of the sheer numbers involved. While there are programmes for under-nutrition in children, adult undernutrition has not been systematically addressed as a TB risk factor. Measures such as TB preventive therapy or even BCG vaccination are completely inadequate substitutes for addressing adult undernutrition in TB care.
TS: But the government has introduced nutritional support initiatives and broader social support measures, such as the Nikshay Poshan Yojana and conditional cash transfer schemes—what are your views on their effectiveness? Recent studies, including one published in Lancet, have received a lot of attention for demonstrating this relationship. Of under-nutrition and tuberculosis. What do these studies add to existing knowledge, and why is this being hailed now?
YJ: The fact that we needed formal studies to prove that food improves tuberculosis outcomes and reduces the risk of developing TB is frankly, ironic. We have known this for over a century at least. It is part of public health common sense now. Despite having this evidence, India has still not committed to providing actual food to TB patients at a national scale. The failure is in converting evidence into policy. Providing ₹500 to ₹1,000 per month to undernourished TB patients as nutritional support is, at best, symbolic and, at worst, grossly inadequate. This amount does not come close to meeting even a month’s basic food requirements for someone who is already severely undernourished.
What is even more concerning is the expectation that civil society will compensate for this gap through initiatives such as the Nikshay Poshan Yojana and the TB Mitra program. While voluntary peer support, community solidarity, and TB champions are certainly welcome, and can play a valuable role in emotional and social support, food and basic material support are fundamental determinants of health with obligations on the state to fulfil.
Adequate nutritional support is not merely about improving treatment outcomes; it is also central to preventing new cases of tuberculosis. I am therefore uncomfortable with the idea that a program that relies on a ₹1,000 cash transfer or on the goodwill of civil society organizations to feed TB patients will be effective.
There is now discussion around introducing energy-dense nutritional supplements for undernourished TB patients, who constitute nearly 90% of the TB burden. However, this has not yet been rolled out nationally. Even if implemented, there are challenges—particularly for patients with severe undernutrition who require inpatient care. High-energy feeds must be carefully monitored to avoid complications. Further, these supplements are unlikely to be cheap, and this approach medicalizes food—treating nutrition as a pharmaceutical add-on rather than as a fundamental social determinant of health. In effect, we are offering nutritional products to be dispensed alongside drugs, either in hospitals or OPD settings, instead of ensuring household-level food security for TB patients and their families. This reflects a lack of conceptual clarity.
Ideally, the program should have provided family rations for households affected by TB and substantially larger, sustained food support for TB patients themselves. What we currently have is a step in the right direction, but it remains a small and insufficient one. At present, I would say the national TB program is in a very muddy situation with respect to nutrition. There is no coherent vision on whether food is being treated as a right, a therapeutic adjunct, or a charitable supplement. Until that confusion is resolved, nutrition will remain a weak pillar in TB elimination efforts.
TS: Hospital care protocols aimed at preventing deaths among severely ill TB patients—through triaging and differentiated TB care—are now being discussed more seriously. Do you see this as a step in the right direction?
YJ: There has been a persistent and recently acknowledged challenge in TB care. Emerging data show that nearly 40% of TB patients, even in a relatively well-performing state like Tamil Nadu, require some period of hospitalization, ranging from a couple of weeks to longer durations. This need is far greater in states such as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Over the past three decades, the national TB program has steadily evolved tuberculosis into an outpatient-managed disease. The sanatorium-era TB wards have largely disappeared, and whatever inpatient facilities exist today are mostly reserved for multidrug-resistant TB. This leaves a significant gap in care for patients with drug-sensitive TB who are severely undernourished, diabetic, HIV-positive, or otherwise clinically unstable—patients who may require oxygen, intravenous fluids, nutritional rehabilitation, or close monitoring during recovery.
At present, Tamil Nadu is the only state that has made a serious attempt to institutionalize triaging and differentiated TB care. Most other states have not adequately addressed this need. We need a fundamental shift in how we view TB—from a disease that is uniformly managed on an outpatient basis to one that requires differentiated care. Some patients can be treated through OPD-based care, but others clearly need hospitalization. This is essential for bringing down the death rates due to TB.
TS: Tamil Nadu’s success on this is due to a few champions for this reform, some of whom I know personally. Part of the reason for the slow uptake across states is that when our narrative is about complete TB elimination by 2025, planning for TB hospital wards, a feature of an earlier era, seems contradictory. We end up trapped in our own narrative—convincing ourselves more than anyone else.
One final question: the national TB prevalence study of 2021–22 was widely described as eye-opening. Are there any plans to repeat such a study, possibly on a larger scale?
YJ: Not that I am aware of. I am also not sure whether there is much enthusiasm within the system to repeat it. However, that study should serve as a cautionary signal for the entire TB program. While the modest decline of about 21%, as projected is probable, we do not do not know how this decline is distributed across all social groups, regions, and forms of marginalization? Is it, for example declining at the same rate among Adivasi communities, among prisoners, among women, among other historically marginalized groups. Aggregate national declines, that too based only on case notification, can be misleading. I would have strongly preferred a mid-term interim prevalence study repeated this year to answer these questions, especially as we move closer to the 2030 SDG targets. A national prevalence study once every five years would have been a very sensible approach.
TS: Finally, to conclude, what would be the priority recommendations or take-aways from this conversation?
YJ: This is an important question, because it allows me to summarize what I have been trying to say throughout this discussion, sometimes with a degree of frustration.
First, we need to recognize that tuberculosis is a disease that has been with us for a very long time. Chest-thumping and exaggerated claims of rapid elimination are not helpful. What we need instead is modesty combined with rigor. Greater emphasis on controlling the disease, rather than the narrative. We must move steadily, systematically, and patiently, while targeting the problem with seriousness and discipline. We must somehow de-link mobilising political support from calls for elimination!!
The foundation of TB control remains unchanged: early diagnosis at the community level, accurate testing, appropriate treatment, strong treatment support, and robust case-holding. These basics—ensuring uninterrupted drug supplies, functioning laboratories, and reliable follow-up—must be done exceptionally well. I would place far greater emphasis on strengthening these routine functions, as part of a much stronger comprehensive primary health care system, than on investing excessive hope or resources in so-called “magic bullet” technologies and schemes. While maximising utilisation of molecular diagnostics is welcome, there should be no withdrawal of sputum microscopy, which should be available everywhere both as back-up and for follow up.
And this must go along with action on social determinants, undernutrition, poor housing, poor working conditions and poverty. Nutritional support must be owned by the state. TB patients and their families need food rations provided as a right, not as charity or aid. Civil society support and peer solidarity are welcome, but food should be a basic public responsibility.
In clinical care we need greater attention on extra-pulmonary tuberculosis, and in-patient care which means a stronger link with secondary and tertiary level facilities.
I am cautious about excessive reliance on the private sector. While we cannot exclude it, and must provide opportunities for willing private providers to participate, tuberculosis care fundamentally requires a strong public health system. There is no inherent reason for TB care to be privatized. If the public system provides reliable, humane, and comprehensive care, patients will come to it. Much of the problem today is due to persistent selective package of primary care services.
Finally, all of this requires significantly greater financial investment, much of this going to human resources for health. While the current allocation of around ₹4,000 crore is not insignificant, it remains inadequate for the scale and complexity of the TB burden we are confronting.
Acknowledgement: Our thanks to Dr Ismail Zubi, Senior Resident, JIPMER School of Public Health for his help with developing the questions, recording and transcription of the conversation, and verifying the data.
Feed-back: Comments or queries on this conversation can be posted on the website below this article or on any of the social media channels in use.
About this series. This conversation is the 29th in this series of discussions on contemporary issues of public health. These conversations would be useful for practititioners who are implementing these programmes, for policy makers to reflect on current and future policies and for academics to think about open research questions in these areas. For the other earlier conversations of this series you can click on the Conversations on Health Policy or visit the RTH collective’s website.
Further Reading: Readers may also take a look at the newly released Routledge Publication “Science and Practice of Public Health- a developing country perspective” for an easy introduction to the approach to the study and practice of public health, that these conversations are aligned with. This is available as a Kindle and Paperback version also.
