Seminar on efficient & effective TB control program up
A two-day live-in Orientation on the Comprehensive Unified Policy for Tuberculosis (TB) in the Philippines will be conducted by the Department of Health-Center for Health Development Western Visayas on July 5-6, 2007 at Residence Hotel, Iloilo City.
Regional Director Lydia S. Depra-Ramos said that the seminar is indeed necessary because tuberculosis still remains to be a major health problem in the Philippines despite significant advances made by the National Tuberculosis Control Program of the Department of Health in improving the quality and extent of its control efforts.
Tuberculosis or TB is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria called mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacteria can enter the body, usually the lungs, and make a person sick by damaging the tissues that it reaches.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Philippines ranks fourth in the world for the number of cases of TB and has the highest number of cases per head in Southeast Asia. Almost two thirds of Filipinos have TB, and up to five million people are infected yearly in our country.
Director Ramos emphasized that “the need to standardize approach to TB control and forge partnership with private sectors and other government agencies have been recognized as strategies to make TB control program efficient and effective."
Relatively, the government has been implementing DOTS or directly observed treatment short course chemotheraphy, the TB control strategy recommended by the World Health Organization.
DOTS strategy combine the following: a) case detection by sputum smear microscopy among patients with TB symptoms who report to health services; b) standardized short-course chemotheraphy with directly observed treaqtment, and c) a standardized recording and reporting system that tracks the treatment of each patient and in turn provides data on the TB control program.
The DOH VI Director said that the two-day seminar is aimed at organizing and educating different stakeholders about the National TB Control Program and how they could participate in its effective and efficient implementation.
(T.Villavert/PIA)