Professor in the Department of Medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore; Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka. Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Anurag Bhargava, a physician and epidemiologist, currently teaches Internal Medicine to undergraduates and residents, does research on India’s public health problems, while being part of a clinical team delivering care in a 1000-bed public hospital in Mangalore, as part of a public-private partnership.
His major research has been in the interactions between Tuberculosis and undernutrition. His research uncovered the high prevalence and severity of undernutrition in patients with TB in India and led to recognition of adult undernutrition as a risk factor for TB incidence and TB mortality, nationally and globally. He led the development of a policy document of the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) that led to nutritional support schemes in India. He developed a triage tool for identifying patients at high risk of adverse outcomes and co-developed a mobile application for nutritional assessment and care of undernourished persons with TB, that is being used by the NTEP in India. He was the Principal Investigator of the RATIONS trial that demonstrated that nutritional interventions could lead to a substantial reduction of TB incidence in household contacts of persons with pulmonary TB and improved outcomes of treatment. He received the KV Desikan Memorial Award conferred by the Lepra Society, India for his significant contributions in the field of Infectious Diseases in India in 2024. He received the 2021 PRJ Gangadharam Endowment Award by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha for a lifetime contribution to TB control in India.
Currently he is a Member, Strategic Technical Advisory Group-TB (STAG-TB) for the Global TB programme, Geneva; Member, Regional Technical Advisory Group for TB (R-TAG-TB) of the WHO South East Asia Region.
Current research projects:
He is currently involved in the analysis of some of the sub-studies of the RATIONS trial and the analysis of long-term outcomes of the patient cohort. He is involved in developing protocols for the management of severe undernutrition in persons with TB, interested in the pharmacokinetics of anti-TB medicines in persons with undernutrition and in interventions to prevent anti-TB drug-induced hepatotoxicity.
Email: anurag.bhargava [at] manipal.edu
