The Department of Health (DOH) Friday said there was a big discrepancy between estimates of the 2024 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report and data in the DOH Integrated TB Information System.

"This simply means that many TB patients are undetected, and are, thus, not able to undergo treatment," said Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa.

The WHO TB Report said around 739,000 Filipinos were afflicted with TB in 2023.

But the DOH system, on the other hand, said there were 575,770 TB cases in 2023.

"We must enhance our active case finding so that we can find TB patients and make sure they undergo complete treatment," said Herbosa.

He said tuberculosis is treatable as long it is detected early. DMS