EDITORIAL - A health crisis

Not too long ago contracting tuberculosis was like getting a death warrant. The disease slowly consumed its victims, making them wither away before death. In 1944 the Philippines lost its Commonwealth president to tuberculosis. Manuel L. Quezon contracted TB from his mother, and started undergoing treatment for it when he was in his 40s. Even doctors in the United States, where he stayed during the war, could not save Quezon. He died of TB in New York just a few days shy of his 66th birthday.

Nearly six decades later, tuberculosis has become a treatable disease, with doctors prescribing a cocktail or combination of drugs over a certain period as cure. TB, however, remains a killer disease. Every day in the Western Pacific region alone, an average of 1,000 people die of TB, according to the World Health Organization. And the number is rising worldwide, with the annual economic costs running into billions of dollars. The prevalence is alarming enough for the WHO to declare a full-blown TB crisis in the developing world, including the Philippines.

WHO officials say TB treatment can cost as little as $10 per patient – about P510. That’s still too steep for millions of poor people who can’t afford even a decent meal. Poverty has been linked to the rise in TB cases, with the highest numbers in the Western Pacific reported in Cambodia, China, Laos, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vietnam. TB aggravates poverty, with 70 percent of victims between 15 and 54 years old – the most productive years.

Last year a global fund worth $1.9 billion was set up to fight TB, AIDS and malaria. The money, however, still isn’t enough. In the next five years Western Pacific countries with the highest levels of TB need $265 million to fight the disease, according to WHO estimates. The additional funding, which WHO officials believe can cut TB deaths by as much as 50 percent, will be used for a TB diagnosis and treatment program called DOTS, for directly observed treatment, short-course.

A report said the medicine for DOTS is running out in Philippine health centers. This could account for the rising incidence of TB deaths in the country, with the victims mostly from poor communities. If the admi-nistration is sincere in promoting the welfare of the poor, it should address this health crisis immediately.