DOH exec sees gains in TB control, bats for more local investment

BANGKOK, Thailand — A Department of Health (DOH) official said the Philippines has made progress in controlling tuberculosis (TB) but may need more local investments to make the programs fighting the disease more sustainable.

Public health expert Rugaiya Calapis, who chairs the DOH National Capital Region (NCR) South TB Medical Advisory Council, cited that the Philippines now uses artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the detection of possible tuberculosis infections in patients.

“When we did x-rays before, the results usually took a while because it had to be brought to radiologists first, but not all communities had radiologists,” Calapis told Filipino reporters in an interview on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific International Roche Infectious Diseases Symposium (APAC-IRIDS) in Bangkok, Thailand on Thursday.

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“That’s where it’s slowed down. That’s one of our diagnostic delays,” she stressed.

“But, with computer-aided detection, which are often brought by chest x-ray vans, since they’re using AI, right then and there, we can see whether there is TB. The images have patches. From there, the patient will undergo a sputum test to confirm it,” she noted.

Calapis also cited that new regiments now available in the country have cut the duration of treatments for drug-resistant TB from 20 months down to six months.

Drug-resistant TB is a version of the disease which is more able to withstand medicines.

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Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows there were 27,869 cases of drug-resistant TB in the Philippines in 2024, down from the peak of 28,980 cases in 2022.

Further, according to Calapis, authorities have now trained primary healthcare workers as well as community-based partners to make treatment easier for patients.

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“We’re now training our primary healthcare workers to do IDOTS so that, even at the first entry of our patient, we already give what we call the entire cascade of care for TB,” Calapis explained.

“We’re already at the level where our TB cases should be treated at the patient’s point of entry and will not have to reach the level of a sub-specialist,” she said.

Despite these developments, in 2025, the WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Report placed the Philippines as the country that was third-most burdened by the disease, accounting for 6.8 percent of all global cases.

The Philippines was the fourth-most burdened country for TB in the same WHO report in 2024.

However, Calapis explained, “It’s because of more TB notifications since we’re testing a lot. When we do testing, we have to report it to the National TB Program. That’s why we can see our TB cases rising.”

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More local investment needed

Given these advancements in the country’s TB control program, Calapis pointed to whether the efforts to respond to the disease were financially sustainable.

“When we have a reduction in support, there are a lot of implications. There is the delayed diagnosis. There is the incomplete treatment of even no treatment at all since we wouldn’t have the drugs,” she said.

“But then, perhaps, we just have to be sustainable on our own with our domestic investments when it comes to testing, treatment and all that. We should be able to handle it,” she added.

According to the WHO, the Philippines’ TB control program was funded with US$68.9 million from international sources and with US$50.3 million from domestic sources in 2024.

Calapis also said the National TB Program has yet to incorporate multi-disease testing for TB patients, which is a method in which a patient’s specimen is also tested for other illnesses, apart from tuberculosis.

In her presentation at the APAC-IRIDS on Wednesday, Calapis maintained that multi-disease testing would cut costs for both patients and medical laboratories, but the method may require a stronger specimen transportation system.

Another room for improvement in the Philippines’ tuberculosis control program is awareness, according to Calapis.

The National TB Control Program was organized in 1978, according to the DOH.

Despite the decades-long program, there was still a gap in Filipinos’ awareness of the disease.

“Often, the patients we see are at the late stage of the disease because they assumed it was just an ordinary cough and that they could treat it with over-the-counter medicines. But, they weren’t getting better,” Calapis explained.

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“Our IEC materials help a lot… But, that may be one of the things we are lacking, information dissemination. Awareness is lacking. But, I think the National TB Program is already looking into that,” she added. /mr