Health ministry says India's TB deaths fell 38% since 2015, beating the world's 35%: the global figure checks out, the 38% cannot be rebuilt from WHO's open pages

What we found

The claim is mostly true, with one number we cannot confirm. On November 13, 2026, Health Minister J P Nadda and the health ministry said India’s estimated TB death rate fell 38% between 2015 and 2025, from 28 to 18 per lakh people, against a 35% fall worldwide. The World Health Organization’s own release confirms the 35% global fall. India’s starting figure of 28 per lakh is in WHO’s published data. The end figure and the 38% are not on any WHO page we could open, and the rounded numbers give 36%, not 38%.

None of this suggests deaths are not falling. It means the headline percentage is a ministry figure until the full report is read.

The evidence

1

What WHO says about the world

WHO’s release of November 12, 2026 says about 10.6 million people developed TB in 2025 and about 1.13 million died. It says TB deaths are down 35% since 2015 and new cases per 100,000 people are down 14%, “far short of the 50% reduction milestone for 2025”. The world reached the first milestone of WHO’s End TB Strategy, a cut in deaths, “five years later than planned”. Neither the release nor the report’s landing page mentions India.

2

India’s 2015 baseline

WHO’s public burden-estimates file, the release that still runs to 2024, gives India 375,000 TB deaths among HIV-negative people in 2015, 28 per lakh. That matches the ministry’s starting point. Counting people with HIV as well, the same file gives 32 per lakh in 2015. For 2024 it gives 21 per lakh on both counts, 300,000 deaths. So the ministry’s series is the HIV-negative one, and the comparison with a world figure described only as “TB deaths” is not shown to be like for like.

3

The 2025 figure and the percentage

The 2026 report updates India’s estimates. Its technical appendix says the 2023 and 2024 figures were lowered by about 8,000 and 20,000 deaths, using new cause-of-death data from the Sample Registration System for 2022 to 2024, with 2025 estimated from programme data. The 18 per lakh for 2025 would follow from that update, but we found it only in the ministry’s statement. Dividing 28 to 18 gives a 35.7% fall. A 38% fall needs unrounded values, such as 28.4 falling to 17.6, which is possible but not shown.

4

What is not in dispute

Even on the old file, India’s all-TB death rate fell from 32 to 21 per lakh between 2015 and 2024, a 34% fall in nine years. The direction is not in doubt. What remains open is whether 2025 took it to 38% or to a little under 36%, and whether the world’s 35% is measured the same way.

Why this claim spread

A World Health Organization report that names no country gives ministers a clean comparison to quote on the day of release, and “faster than the world” is easy to repeat. The ministry’s statement carried the rounded endpoints and the percentage together, so the two look like one fact. The WHO pages do not carry India’s figures in their summaries. Readers who want to settle the 38% need the full report’s country profile, which should show the unrounded 2015 and 2025 rates. Our news report carries the ministry’s numbers as stated, and our editorial asks for the data behind them.

What would settle it

Three things would close the gap. The first is the country profile in the full 2026 report, which lists India’s death rate for each year with a range. The second is the unrounded 2015 value as WHO now holds it, since the report warns that its estimates should be read against the latest time series and not against earlier editions. The third is a statement of whether the 35% world figure and the 38% India figure count the same deaths. Until then, the safe wording is that India’s TB death rate has fallen by roughly a third or more since 2015, in step with the world, and that the ministry puts the fall at 38%.