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Friday, March 28, 2008
Health office triples fund v. tuberculosis (6:17 p.m.)
MANILA -- The Department of Health (DOH) has tripled its budget this year to combat the rising cases of tuberculosis (TB) among Filipinos.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said for this year, the budget for the National TB Control Program was raised to P680 million from the previous allocation of P240 million.
"This unparalleled amount of investments for TB control will be used to intensify action and make swifter strides in our fight against tuberculosis," Duque said during the observance of the World TB Day held in Marikina City last Friday.
Records of the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that the world is facing the highest number of multi-drug resistant (MDR) forms of TB in history and in the Western Pacific Region.
The Philippines, next to China, registered the highest prevalence rate of MDR-TB cases at four percent of all new smear positive MDR-TB patients.
The health chief also revealed that on a daily basis, 75 Filipinos die of TB. But he stressed that the availability of the drugs treatment had been effective if detected early.
For 2008, the DOH, according to Duque, aims to reach 117 MDR-TB patients as beneficiaries of complete TB treatment drugs worth P150,000 per patient. (MSN/Sunnex)
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