Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will start providing tuberculosis (TB) medications for 141 patients in Tondo, Manila starting today. The organization said this is to support the Manila Health Department (MHD), which has been struggling with drug shortages over the past year.
This will enable patients whose treatment has been pending for several months to start taking their medication, MSF also said.
Since January 2024, over 300 patients have been diagnosed with TB through the active case-finding activities of Doctors Without Borders in Tondo, Manila.
While some patients were able to start treatment, many others were unable to start treatment due to the unavailability of TB drugs. In addition, a number of patients who started treatment were unable to continue the treatment until completion due to the shortages of drugs for the continuation phase.
This is due to the recurrent drug shortage at the local health centers, and due to the patients’ economic difficulties in purchasing TB drugs themselves, MSF said.
Members of the community have refused to attend the screening activities at the active case-finding activities organized by Doctors Without Borders, fearing the impact of the drug shortage should they be diagnosed with TB.
In districts 1 and 2 of Tondo, Manila, Doctors Without Borders has been running an active case-finding activity for tuberculosis since 2022, in collaboration with MHD. This Doctors Without Borders project makes TB screening accessible and available near the areas where Tondo residents live and work. Doctors Without Borders teams provide free TB screening, trace household contact cases, and refer TB-positive patients to local health centers. They also follow up with patients to ensure they adhere to the treatment regimen and break the chains of transmission.
