Davao health officials assure high ‘treatment success rate’ in curing TB

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 20 March) — The City Health Office (CHO) has assured the public that it will maintain its high “treatment success rate” in curing tuberculosis (TB) patients despite the anticipated shortage of free medication.

Dr. Nikita Marie Jamiana-Reyes during the iSpeak media forum. MindaNews photo by IAN CARL ESPINOSA

Nikita Marie Jamiana-Reyes, CHO – National Tuberculosis Program medical coordinator, said there is a shortage of free tuberculosis medication as the city relies mostly on the Department of Health (DOH) for supplies.

Despite this, in past years, Jamiana-Reyes said they managed to cure 90.5 percent of what she indicated as “treatment success rate” of the city’s tuberculosis patients in 2023 and 89.5 percent in 2022.

“This means that TB is curable, and we still have medications to help them cure the infection. They will just have to visit their health centers,” Jamiana-Reyes told reporters at the sidelines of the iSpeak media forum at City Hall Thursday morning.

In 2023, the city recorded 5,026 TB patients; in 2022, 4,292 patients.

In 2024, 8,601 cases were recorded, but Jamiana-Reyes said that they have yet to finalize the treatment success rate.

To help address the medication shortage, Jamiana-Reyes added that the city is in the process of procuring additional medications, though they are only sufficient for 50 to 100 patients.

“Pero so far, proudly, sabi ng mga partners natin sa DOH, nindot daw kay dili mi mahutdan og tambal sa TB ang mga pasyente sa Davao,” she said.

The DOH regularly conducts Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course (DOTS), a globally recognized strategy for treating TB, to ensure that patients must adhere to the necessary medications under direct supervision from the localized barangay DOTS health officers.

In the Philippines, the Department of Health’s National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTP) adopted DOTS in 1996 as its core framework to combat TB.

Most of these DOTS medications are partially funded under foreign aid, with the latest under the United States government, through its foreign aid arm, the US Agency or International Development (USAID).

On March 22, 2024, USAID and the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) announced an additional ₱1.15 billion ($21 million) in funding to strengthen efforts against tuberculosis (TB) in the Philippines.

USAID and its other stakeholders vowed to allocate ₱550 million ($10 million) through the foreign aid arm’s Support Wide-scale Interventions to Find TB (SWIF-TB) initiative, while the DOH allocated the remaining ₱605 million ($11 million).

However, a Philippine News Agency article stated that the DOH is working on securing local funding to sustain HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis programs as foreign aid declines.

This is after the US President Donald Trump’s decision to eliminate more than 90 percent of the USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall US assistance worldwide on January 20, 2025.

Despite these, Jamiana-Reyes said the CHO is focused on active and passive case finding for tuberculosis, with mobile X-ray units brought into communities for active case finding and passive case finding conducted at health facilities for patients showing symptoms.

“We are encouraging our health workers to urge their people to visit [their health centers] if one has TB,” she said in the vernacular.

DOH-Davao data from 2024 show that over 21,146 cases of tuberculosis were identified and recorded in the Davao Region, with 8,601 of these cases coming from Davao City.

Jamiana-Reyes confirmed this data, saying most of these cases affect the working population, aged 18 to 40 years old.

According to the DOH, TB is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, primarily affecting the lungs (pulmonary TB) but also impacting other parts of the body, such as the bones, brain, kidneys, and liver (extra-pulmonary TB).

Transmission occurs when a person inhales TB bacteria expelled into the air through coughing, sneezing, or spitting by someone with active TB disease. Close contacts, especially household members, are at higher risk of infection.

While TB is curable and preventable, incomplete or irregular treatment may lead to drug-resistant TB or even death.

The DOH’s National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTP), established in 1978, aims to reduce TB mortality by 95% and TB incidence by 90% by 2035. (Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)