Based on WHO’s 2019 Global Tuberculosis Report (available at who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/), an estimated 591,000 Filipinos fell ill last year from tuberculosis, accounting for 6 percent of the 10 million global total, surpassing figures in low middle-income countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh. As such, the Philippines found itself fourth in a list of eight countries which accounted for two-thirds of the global tuberculosis total. But as of last year, according to the report, total reduction only stood at 6.3 percent. It is also one of 10 countries which account for 75 percent of the global gap for treatment enrollments. Health Secretary Francisco Duque III had said earlier that by the end of the Duterte administration in 2022, the government would have found and treated around 2.5 million tuberculosis patients.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer October 19, 2019 21:45 UTC