ILOILO CITY, Iloilo, Philippines (PIA) – Some 17,000 cases of tuberculosis (TB) have been recorded in Western Visayas according to Dr. Edith Gemotea, regional TB coordinator of the Department of Health in Region 6.

Gimotea said of the 17,000 TB cases, about 10,000 were highly infectious while 7,000 cases were diagnosed sputum negative.

Gimotea also mentioned that children with TB are among the 17,000 TB cases recorded in the region.

Patients diagnosed with highly infectious TB cases could infect 10 to 20 persons a year if not treated, while those found to be sputum negative can infect one to two persons a year, Gimotea said.

TB is an infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects a person’s lungs. It is transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease.

Gimotea said the anti-TB campaign in the region is doing well because “in terms of morbidity, we have reduced it to almost half per the 1990 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) baseline data of 50 per 100,000 population”.

“We have reduced it, and last year we already met the 28 per 100,000 population goal for our Anti-TB campaign,” Gimotea said.