PH receives TB Champion award from USAID
Department of Health Secretary (DOH) Janette L. Garin received from Gloria D. Steele, USAID Mission Director/Philippines and the Pacific Islands, the TB Champion award during the national World TB Day 2015 celebration in Batangas City.
USAID commended the Philippines for its outstanding work in the fight against tuberculosis, which kills 23,000 Filipinos annually.
The DOH estimates that 430,000 Filipinos have active TB and 8,500 have multidrug-resistant TB. The DOH’s strong leadership through policy support, technical guidance, and the provision of critically needed anti-TB drugs has enabled the Philippines to achieve – three years ahead of the 2015 deadline – the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets of reducing by half TB prevalence and mortality rates from the 1990 baseline.
“World TB Day gives us an opportunity to celebrate our successes. Each year, USAID recognizes TB Champions for their leadership and for accelerating progress towards the goal of ending TB. Tuberculosis affects people in their most productive years, hindering them to go to school or to work, and crippling families and community, perpetuating the cycle of poverty,” said Steele.
“The fight against tuberculosis continues for us,” Garin responded. “The need to step up and embolden our efforts beyond 2015 and beyond the Millennium Development Goals has now become even more necessary. We look forward to zero TB deaths, zero TB disease, and zero sufferings due to tuberculosis.”
Nearly a thousand TB advocates and health providers representing government agencies, non-government organizations, schools, jails and prisons, pharmaceutical companies, medical and professional societies, and TB-DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course) facilities joined this year’s World TB Day celebration in a show of commitment to reach, treat, and cure all TB cases.
Dr. Jose Hesron Morfe, national chair of the Philippine Coalition Against Tuberculosis, which led the World TB Day activities, called for “increased community awareness and stronger political and social commitment to pursue TB control through early diagnosis and appropriate treatment.” The cheer and dance contest participated in by various groups from CALABARZON communicated this message with plenty of energy and color.
Batangas Governor Vilma Santos-Recto, who hosted the World TB Day celebration, urged everyone to work as partners in eradicating TB in the country. “The fight against TB is not the fight of the infected person only, but the fight of the whole community,” she concluded.