Manila, April 25 -- The government plans to scale up its screening and testing methods in the hope of finding and treating all Filipinos with tuberculosis (TB) by 2022, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said Wednesday.
The World Health Organization said a total of one million Filipinos or one percent of the national population have active TB and many among them do not even know that they are carriers of the disease.
Around 27,000 Filipinos annually or 70 Filipinos daily die from TB, which is supposed to be a highly-curable disease.
DOH Undersecretary and Public Health Service Team officer-in-charge Myrna Cabotaje said the agency is now geared towards "actively finding TB cases" through massive screening using chest X-ray, mas...