THE Department of Health (DOH) is looking at shorter treatment courses for tuberculosis to make sure patients will complete their treatment program, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said yesterday.
Herbosa, in a press conference, said the World Health Organization has recommended that the Philippines adopt “the four months treatment or regimen for the regular drug susceptible TB, and six months regimen for the drug resistant TB.”
He said the DOH plans to implement the shorter courses by the third quarter.
“The shorter terms, I think, will give us better success,” he said.
Herbosa said the DOH has been seeing TB patients not completing their therapy programs.
“Some of the problems with TB is due to the long treatment of nine to 12 months. There are many fallouts, where they stop their treatments if they are no longer feeling sick,” he said.
Another way to prevent fallouts, he said, is by enhancing the digital component of the TB — directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS). He the method has been introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s the same principle as TB-DOTS but on the phone. We can still monitor the compliance in taking their treatments,” he added.
Herbosa said adopting the digital mechanism will avoid cases of TB patients being unable to complete their treatment due to financial reasons.
“They have to go to the facility via commuting. After a while, if they have no money for their fare, they won’t go to the center anymore and stop getting their treatments,” said Herbosa.
To recall, addressing the perennial TB problem is one of the marching orders of President Marcos to Herbosa when the latter was appointed last month.
