Manila, November 13 (IANS). The Philippines’ Health Department said on Thursday that the country has stepped up its fight against TB. Under this campaign, the government aims to screen 1.2 crore (12 million) people across the country by 2026.
To expand and speed up TB services, the agency said on social media that it has proposed a budget of 4.2 billion pesos (about $71 million) for the year 2026. This is almost double the budget of 2.6 billion pesos (about $44 million) set for 2025.
Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said ultra-portable, AI-based chest X-rays and nucleic acid amplification tests recommended by the World Health Organization are already being used in the Philippines for early detection and diagnosis of TB cases.
Herbosa said a new treatment approach has been adopted to treat drug-resistant TB, reducing the treatment period from two years to just six months.
According to the World Health Organization, about 10.7 million cases of TB are expected to be reported worldwide by 2024, of which about 6.8 percent could be in the Philippines. According to Xinhua news agency, about 100 people lose their lives due to TB every day in the Philippines.
According to the World Health Organization, TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which mainly affects the lungs. The disease spreads through the air when a person with pulmonary TB coughs, sneezes, or spits. It only takes a few breaths of bacteria for a person to become infected.
Every year about 1 crore people fall ill with TB. This disease can be prevented and cured, yet about 1.5 million people die from TB every year. For this reason TB remains one of the most deadly infectious diseases in the world.
TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV and is also a major contributor to the spread of antibiotic resistance (drug resistance).
–IANS
SHK/AS