With more than 8 million people diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) last year, the highest number recorded since the world Health Organization (WHO) began keeping track the disease, the Philippines has been tagged among 10 countries flagged for being ‘high-burden’ in terms of TB incidence, number of patients with TB and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and number of patients contracting multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB.

According to data from WHO, it was recorded that more than 739,000 Filipinos contracted TB in 2023 and of this, 5,400 have a TB and HIV coinfection. This translates to 643 people per 100,000 population being infected with the contagious and airborne disease. The figure was way higher than the average in the Western Pacific region, where the TB incidence rate is only at 97 per 100,000 people.

It was also estimated that some 37,000 Filipinos with TB died in 2023, making it among the top causes of deaths in the country.

WHO noted that while the incidence rate and deaths due to TB have decreased in the region from 2015 to 2023, the reverse was happening in the Philippines.

“TB incidence rate increased by 17 percent, while TB deaths increased by 33 percent. Following the trend, the country may not be able to achieve the 2025 global milestones of reducing the TB incidence rate by 50 percent, and decrease the total TB deaths by 75 percent compared with 2015,” the United Nation’s health agency disclosed.

WHO likewise reported that the Philippines is among the top five countries that accounted for more than half of the 400,000 people across the globe to have developed MDR-TB—India (27 percent), the Russian Federation (7.4 percent), Indonesia (7.4 percent), China (7.3 percent) and the Philippines (7.2 percent).

MDR-TB is a form of TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most effective first-line TB drugs. While MDR-TB is curable, a patient needs to take stronger antibiotics which tend to be more expensive and have severe side effects.

In the latest Global Tuberculosis Report 2024, TB has killed 1.25 million people across the globe in 2023, making it once again the world’s leading infectious disease killer, surpassing Covid-19 from 2020 to 2022.