The Philippines remains among the top five countries that account for more than half of the tuberculosis cases in the world, according to the World Health Organization’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2024 that was released last week.
The report reveals that TB has killed 1.25 million people across the globe in 2023, making it the world’s leading infectious disease killer, surpassing COVID-19 from 2020 to 2022. An estimated 10.8 million people fell ill with TB in 2023, with children and young adolescents accounting for 12 percent of the cases.
“Those newly diagnosed in 2022 and 2023 probably included a sizable backlog of people who developed TB in previous years, but whose diagnosis and treatment was delayed by COVID-related disruptions,” it noted.
The five countries that account for 56 percent of the global TB burden are India (26 percent), Indonesia (10 percent), China (6.8 percent), the Philippines (6.8 percent), and Pakistan (6.3 percent).
The Philippines was also among the 10 countries flagged by the WHO for being “high burden” in terms of TB incidence, number of patients with TB and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), and number of patients contracting multidrug-resistant TB.
While the incidence rate and deaths due to TB have decreased in the region from 2015 to 2023, the reverse was true for the Philippines, where an estimated 37,000 Filipinos with TB died in 2023, making it among the top causes of death in the country.
The TB incidence rate increased by 17 percent, while TB deaths increased 33 percent. Following that trend, the country may not be able to achieve the 2025 global milestones of reducing the TB incidence rate by 50 percent, and decrease the total TB deaths by 75 percent compared to 2015.
The cure and prevention of Tuberculosis has been determined, and yet the Philippines has somehow failed to prevent infections and deaths on a level that puts it among the world’s top five. To make matters worse, the country also has high numbers of patients with TB and HIV, and those who contract multidrug resistant TB, which makes the challenge even more difficult and at the same the need for action even more urgent.
Our health officials must do better when it comes to addressing diseases like TB, which was a serious health concern in the past but has already been relegated by most of the world as a minor annoyance, after their successful efforts to cure and prevent outbreaks of the infectious disease.*
