New Delhi, Mar 17 (IANS): Indian Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan has been appointed Chairman of the 'Stop TB Partnership' Board, the ministry said on Wednesday, adding that he will serve a three-year term.

The Stop TB Partnership is a unique international body with the power to align actors all over the world in the fight against tuberculosis (TB). The participation of a wide range of constituencies gives this body the credibility and the broad range of medical, social and financial expertise needed to defeat TB and achieve its vision of a TB-free world.

Harsh Vardhan will serve a three-year term, commencing July 2021, as the Chair of the Board of Stop TB Partnership, which was established in 2000, and mandated to eliminate TB as a public health problem.

The organisation was conceived following the meeting of the First Session of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Tuberculosis Epidemic held in London in March 1998.

In September 2019, Harsh Vardhan had launched a new and aggressive 'TB Harega Desh Jeetega' campaign, along with the National TB Prevalence Survey.

Since then, multi-stakeholder and community participation has formed the pivot of the countrywide campaign.

India aims to eradicate TB by 2025, five years ahead of the global deadline.