Udupi: District in-charge Minister and Minister of State for Fisheries, Sports and Youth Empowerment Pramod Madhwaraj said that India needs to fight continuously against the Tuberculosis (TB) until it is completely eradicated. He was addressing the gathering during the inauguration of World Tuberculosis Day organised at Rajathadri, DC office, Manipal on March 24.

Pramod said, “India is free from polio. The World Health Organization has announced that TB be eradicated before 2025. In order to eliminate TB completely, the help of medical associations, doctors and other organisations is essential.”

“More and more citizens continue to contract TB. The death rate from TB is around 34 percent. In every five minutes, two new TB patients are detected. The situation is very bad”, said the Minister.

He also informed that in Udupi district, 914 TB cases were reported in government hospitals and 892 cases in private hospital in the last year. In detecting TB cases Karnataka is better than other states in the country, he added.

Dr. Prathviraj Hegde, Dr. Vysaraj Tantri, Dr. Vishweshvara Bhat, Dr. G S Chandrashekar, Dr. Dinesh Nayak and Assistant Medicines Control Official Nagaraj were felicitated by the minister for their contribution to TB control.