TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but infection alone does not always lead to disease. (File photo/Canva) Eliminating undernutrition could have prevented nearly seven lakh tuberculosis (TB) cases in India in 2023 alone, according to a major new modelling study that underscores what public health experts have long argued: India cannot eliminate tuberculosis without tackling hunger and poor nutrition. Published in The Lancet Global Health, the study estimates that if all adult undernutrition — defined as a body mass index (BMI) below 18.5, the threshold used to classify an adult as underweight — was eliminated, 28.6 per cent of adult TB episodes in India could have been avoided. “With India’s huge population, this amounts to approximately 7,12,000 adult TB episodes in 2023,” Prof Pete Dodd, Professor of Mathematical Modelling and Epidemiology at the University of Sheffield, told The Indian Express.…