New Delhi, Nov. 10: India has decided to launch a tuberculosis research consortium that will seek ways to speed up diagnosis and improve cure rates amid concerns about the emergence of drug-resistant TB and little decline in the numbers of new cases each year.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will lead the initiative to test new candidate drugs to improve cure rates in patients with multi drug-resistant (MDR) TB and encourage technologies for rapid diagnosis and treatment of TB which is crucial to prevent its spread.

The World Health Organisation's global TB report for 2016, released last month, had estimated that 28 lakh people (217 per 100,000 population) developed TB in India, significantly higher than the earlier estimate of 22 lakh for 2014 (167 per 100,000). Health experts estimate TB kills over 450,000 persons in India every year.

"This is an extremely worrying situation for all," said Soumya Swaminathan, director-general of the ICMR. "We urgently need new strategies to improve diagnosis and treatment strategies to improve cure rates, reduce death rates, and block its spread."

Drug-sensitive TB is easily cured through a combination of four standard drugs and treatment that lasts six months and promises a cure rate of over 95 per cent. But drugs to treat MDR-TB are less reliable and are associated with cure rates of about 50 per cent, while XDR (extreme drug resistant)-TB has cure rates of about 30 per cent.

Swaminathan said the research consortium will work with the health ministry's TB control programme to assess new candidate anti-TB drugs on patients with MDR-TB. The ICMR working with the health ministry will plan clinical trials to test whether these drugs can improve cure rates in MDR-TB or XDR-TB.

A health ministry official said funding for the initiative was expected to come from multiple sources, including the health ministry's TB control budget and other agencies such as the Union science and technology ministry's department of biotechnology which could support research projects.

A public health analyst who requested not to be named said a consensus on the need to launch such an initiative emerged amid growing concerns that elements of the Indian TB control programme need to be significantly improved.

The incidence of TB - or the annual number of new cases each year - has declined by only 2 per cent each year, an incremental decline, so small that the number of new cases overwhelm the TB control programme. The rise of MDR-TB is also viewed as a serious threat to public health.

"The effort in India needs new tools, new approaches, we need to block transmission through early diagnosis and treatment," said Barry Bloom, distinguished service professor at Harvard University, and chair of an international scientific advisory group that is guiding the India TB research consortium.

India's standard diagnostic tool relies on sputum microscopy that takes several days to confirm a diagnosis and is also not efficient - it can miss cases. Bloom said the new initiative was expected to stimulate research and introduce rapid diagnostic tools such as a tool that could reliably diagnosis TB within 90 minutes.

The long delay in diagnosis in many patients contributes to delays in treatment during which time they could spread the infection to other people - either members of their households or others among the public.

Health officials involved in the TB control programme have in the past cited lack of funds, human resources, and laboratory infrastructure as among factors that have prevented appropriate expansion of appropriate diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies.

"We have now been assured that funds for TB control will be available," a health official said.