Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme
RNTCP stands for Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme. It was launched in 1997 to control tuberculosis (TB) in India. In 2020, RNTCP was renamed the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP). The goal of NTEP is to eliminate TB in India by 2025. India has had a National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) since 1962. A comprehensive review of the NTP in 1992 found that the NTP had not achieved its aims or targets. Based on there commendations of the 1992 review, the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), incorporating the components of the internationally recommended DOTS strategy for the control of TB, was developed. RNTCP has now been implemented in the country for more than a decade, and has been expanded geographically to achieve nation-wide coverage in March 2006. Today, RNTCP is the largest TB control programme in the world, placing more than 100,000 patients on treatment every month. Approximately 75 new smear positive PTB cases occur per lakh population per year. It is also estimated that nationwide, about 2,76,000 people die due to TB annually. The spread of human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) during the last two decades, emergence of various forms of drug resistant TB and unregulated vast private sector pose additional challenges in effective TB control.