Wellcome Images / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Cropped.
Tamil Nadu has cut deaths among people with tuberculosis by at least 38 per cent using five checks that need no laboratory: body mass index, swelling in the feet, breathing rate, oxygen level and whether the patient can stand without help.
The results come from a paper by the ICMR National Institute of Epidemiology and the Tamil Nadu State TB Cell, published in BMJ Global Health on 7 November. Under the state's TB death free project, every adult diagnosed with drug sensitive TB, about 60,000 a year, is checked at diagnosis. Those found severely ill are sent straight for hospital admission.
The death rate was 6.3 per cent when the project began in 2022. It fell to 3.9 per cent for patients diagnosed in late 2024 and to 2.8 per cent for those diagnosed in mid 2025, the researchers reported. It took two years before the gains showed. Repeat checks two months after diagnosis never reached more than 35 per cent of severely ill patients in any quarter.
The lesson matters in Madhya Pradesh. The state recorded 4,733 TB deaths in 2025, about 13 a day, Dainik Bhaskar reported in March, citing official data. Mandsaur and Neemuch were reported at up to 6 per cent mortality and Betul around 5 per cent, with experts blaming poor nutrition and distance from care, the weakness the five checks are meant to catch.
The two sets of figures are not measured the same way and cannot be compared directly. A national guidance on such differentiated TB care has been in place since March 2025. Public reports do not show how many MP districts track whether severely ill patients actually reach a hospital bed.
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