Many developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Philippines, still have a high tuberculosis (TB) incidence rate, according to an article published in the Asian Development Blog of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).Citing World Health Organization (WHO) data, the recently published article said the highly infectious disease “remains rife” in the region, with Southeast Asia responsible for 46 per cent of global infections in 2022, “the highest in any region”, Xinhua news agency reported.
The article also said the pandemic devastated national TB prevention and treatment programmes, causing an estimated half a million excess deaths between 2020 and 2022.
However, the good news is that there has been a post-pandemic recovery in the number of people diagnosed with and treated for TB, helping to reduce the damage done by the pandemic, it added.
According to the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2023, the Philippines, along with Indonesia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam, have some of the highest levels of TB in the region — around 700,000 people out of a population of 115 million have active TB.