Indonesia ramps up TB screening to hit 2026 case-finding target

Sumedang, West Java (ANTARA) - Indonesia's Health Ministry is ramping up contact tracing and active screening to meet its 2026 tuberculosis (TB) target of 972,000 detected cases, with 666,985 logged through October, officials said Thursday.

Deputy Health Minister Benjamin Paulus Octavianus emphasized in Sumedang that aggressive community outreach is vital to identify undiagnosed patients amid a national estimated incidence of 1.08 million cases this year.

"People living in the same household as a patient must be screened. Beyond that, their neighbors should be tested as well. If a patient works somewhere, people in their workplace should also be checked," Octavianus said.

Of the 666,985 patients detected so far, 599,425 have initiated treatment.

The ministry is integrating TB checks into its Free Health Check program—which has already screened over 300,000 people across 53,335 sites nationwide—while extending testing to workplaces and Islamic boarding schools.

To bolster preventive therapy and medication adherence, the government is deploying two incentivized cadres per village, paid 500,000 rupiah ($27.40) monthly, aiming to reduce annual TB incidence by roughly 6 percent through comprehensive contact tracing.

Sumedang District Head Dony Ahmad Munir noted that local integrated efforts have screened 30,000 of a targeted 65,000 residents, aiming to "improve medication adherence, reduce dropout rates, and increase TB treatment success."

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Translator: Ilham Nugraha, Raka Adji
Editor: Aditya Eko Sigit Wicaksono
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