THE Department of Health starting this year will take stronger measures to reduce tuberculosis to a rare disease by 2022.
In a press briefing held Friday in observance of World TB Day, Health Secretary Dr. Paulyn Ubial said that through the 2017 to 2022 Philippine Strategic TB Elimination Plan 1 or PHILSTEP 1, the department hopes to reduce the incidence of TB to at least three cases per 10,000 or 322 per 100,000.
Noting that TB is the eighth leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the country, Ubial said this necessitates a call for unified action against TB by each and everyone.
She said that to reach their targets, they will make use of a new methodology to detect TB. “We used to detect it through sputum microscopy and X-ray, which is sometimes unreliable. But now, we have the gene expert method, which uses genomics or genetic sequencing by using the sputum to detect TB bacilli,” she said.
At high risk of contracting TB are jail inmates, children, urban poor, those with diabetes, and those infected with HIV-AIDS, she said.