DOH, USAID commit P1.15B to screen 1 million Filipinos for TB

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Department of Health (DOH) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will be pouring around P1.15 billion into public and private sector efforts to screen at least 1 million Filipinos for tuberculosis (TB) and enhance case finding for it, as the country continues to be burdened by this curable disease.

In a statement on Friday, DOH said it pledged P605 million, while USAID and its private partners committed P550 million ($10 million), which will be allotted for the implementation of innovative programs for early TB screening, testing, and preventative treatment.

The additional funding from the US government is also part of its Support Widescale Interventions To Find TB (SWIF-TB) initiative, whose only recipients are the Philippines and Ethiopia.

The program envisions integrating TB screening with testing for other lung diseases, as well as communicable and noncommunicable diseases, like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and diabetes, respectively.

This is in line with the United Nation’s target to identify and treat 2.1 million people living with TB in the next three years, or by 2027.

Call to action

“This is not just a funding opportunity—it is a call to action,” USAID Deputy Administrator Paloma Adams-Allen said.

She said the US humanitarian organization would work to “amplify existing efforts, implement innovative case-finding strategies [and] expand preventative therapies” to be able to reach the most vulnerable segments of the population.

Adams-Allen also vowed to pay a “fair wage” to community health workers who would be tapped for the project.

For her part, DOH Undersecretary Lilibeth David said the health department was dedicated to “strengthening primary health-care services, enhancing capacities, and fortifying infrastructure” for the treatment and prevention of TB.

“Our goal is to accelerate universal access to TB care, leaving no one behind,” David said.

READ: Medical alliance works to bring down cost of TB tests

The World Health Organization’s 2023 Global TB Report listed the Philippines as one of the “high-burden countries” for TB, HIV-associated TB, and multidrug-resistant TB.

According to the DOH, some 160 Filipinos die from TB every day.