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How community-led AI-powered X-Rays are helping find TB among those without symptoms

[हिंदी] Some of the people diagnosed with TB in a couple of important community-based screening initiatives in Delhi did not come to the health facility complaining of a cough, fever or other obvious symptoms. They came for something else - routine follow-up for HIV care, or because a mobile screening camp had reached their neighbourhood.

When every HIV visit becomes a chance to stop TB

TB continues to be the most common opportunistic infection as well as biggest cause of deaths of people living with HIV despite decades of progress in diagnosis, treatment and prevention. TB is preventable and curable but it was not so for over 150,000 people living with HIV who died of TB in 2024, as per latest UNAIDS report 2026 launched at 26th International AIDS Conference 2026 (AIDS 2026).

Some of the most important lessons from the recently concluded AIDS 2026 Conference were learnt not inside the conference halls, but on the steep hillsides of dangerous favelas (urban slums) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Tuberculosis (TB) programmes worldwide have expanded diagnosis and treatment on a historic scale. Millions of lives have been saved. Yet TB remains the deadliest infectious disease in the world. The gap between progress and elimination is not a mystery of medicine. It is a failure of prevention, politics, and priorities, said Dr Tara Singh Bam, noted global health advocate.

[video] How Lakshadweep became India’s first TB-free territory

[video] Services must follow people, not diseases: Stop treating TB and HIV as separate diseases

[video] TB does not wait. Neither do we: Community-led AI X-Rays saving HIV communities in Delhi

[video] 54 months to end AIDS, TB, Hepatitis, STIs and vertical transmission of HIV in South-East Asia

[video] Artificial intelligence X-Ray screening for TB in people living with HIV is vital

[video] Infection prevention, right & timely diagnosis, right treatment for all infections: prevent AMR

[video] Hidden no more: Social security for workers living with HIV

[video] ILO unveils VCT@Work model to reach informal workers with HIV testing at AIDS 2026

[video] Migration and HIV: Lessons learnt from addressing HIV, health and social protection in Odisha

[video] Bhutan’s hard-won HIV and LGBT gains at risk as international funding dries up

[video] Rights are the foundation

[video] Countries used COVID to rollback hard-won rights

How can we leave those behind who are at higher TB risk?

A female migrant worker who lives in an urban slum in India’s national capital Delhi lost both her children to TB. When the best of standard TB diagnostics and latest treatments are available (and also made in India), even one TB death is a death too many. Over 1.25 million people died of TB worldwide in 2023, as per the latest WHO Global TB Report 2024. Every TB death is a reminder that we could have done better to prevent, find, treat TB and support those dealing with the disease.

Before 2025 World TB Day I spent a day accompanying TB affected street activists (TASA) - women who help find more TB among homeless women and female migrant workers in urban poor localities of India’s capital Delhi and link those in need to public services.

[watch the WCLH session recording] "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has,” had said the famous anthropologist, Margaret Mead. Imbibing these values, a small group of people in India and Philippines have changed the lives of many people affected by tuberculosis (TB) – especially those who were being missed or left behind by public services. TB, despite being preventable and curable, continues to be the deadliest of infectious diseases in high TB burden countries. In 2023 TB infected 10.8 million people and killed 1.25 million people worldwide.