In observance of the Holy Week, the Philippine News Agency’s online news service will be off on March 29, Good Friday, and March 30, Black Saturday. Normal operations will resume on March 31, Easter Sunday.

— The Editors

SoCot intensifies TB case-finding, surveillance

By Allen Estabillo

May 30, 2022, 4:31 pm

<p>Dr. Rogelio Aturdido Jr., head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office. <em>(PNA file photo)</em></p>

Dr. Rogelio Aturdido Jr., head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office. (PNA file photo)

KORONADAL CITY – South Cotabato health personnel have detected nearly 200 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) in the past several months, amid an expanded active case-finding and surveillance activities in the province’s 10 towns and lone city.

Dr. Rogelio Aturdido Jr., head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO), said Monday mobile teams deployed to barangays to conduct massive free chest X-rays for TB case detection have so far catered over a thousand residents.

At least 20 percent of the tested population, about 200 individuals, have turned out positive for the disease, Aturdido said.

“This means that we have many residents who are experiencing this illness but were not detected probably because of misinformation and inaccessibility to diagnostic services and treatment,” he said during the regular flag-raising ceremony at the provincial capitol.

Infectious disease health personnel are trying to reach the remotest areas in the province using a mobile X-ray van provided by agency partners Maranao People Development Center, Inc. (Maradeca) and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), Aturdido said.

Another mobile X-ray van with a sputum testing laboratory purchased by the provincial government is expected to arrive soon to further expand the ongoing case-finding and surveillance, he said.

Aturdido said they are also set to deploy ultraportable chest X-ray machines to augment testing activities.

Aturdido earlier said the province’s treatment success rate for TB was 95 percent, but the case detection rate was only 56 percent.

Since last year, the IPHO already catered to around 3,000 residents for the free chest X-ray in partnership with Maradeca and PBSP.

In March 2020, it reported detecting nearly 600 new TB cases in its surveillance activities with PBSP.

Aturdido added that they are working on the purchase of additional medicines for TB as supplies at the provincial and municipal health offices are already limited.

“We’re now reviewing our (fund) utilization and moving for an emergency purchase,” he said. (PNA)

Comments