Food for Thought: The Role of Undernutrition and Diabetes in India’s TB Epidemic

Despite shouldering more than a quarter of the global TB burden, the Indian government has promised its citizens a “TB-Mukt Bharat” (TB-free India) by 2025, ten years ahead of the global target.¹ To accomplish this feat, the government dramatically increased TB funding over the past few years. Indeed, the Indian TB budget in 2016 was 280 million dollars with 62% of the funding coming from international sources.1 In 2018, India spent 580 million dollars on TB programs with 79% coming from domestic sources— a marked increase.² As the TB budget grows in girth, we must ensure that funding is directed toward addressing challenges particular to the India: pervasive undernutrition and the meteoric rise of diabetes which are driving the TB epidemic in India.