The Eradication of Tuberculosis; the Greatest Health Problem in the Philippines

1. Tuberculosis is the most dreadful disease in the Philippines because of the very high mortality among our countrymen, with devastating effects on our economic and social conditions.

2. The thirty-five thousand ( 35,000) deaths from tuberculosis during the war represent an economic loss of sixty nine million and four hundred seventy five thousand pesos (P 69,475,000) per year, and the 420,000 Filipinos actually sick of tuberculosis represent an economic loss of another four hundred five million and three hundred thousand pesos(P 405,300,000) yearly.

3. The causes of the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis among the Filipinos are: (1) Ignorance and lack of hygiene and sanitation; (2) poverty; (3) poor economy; (4) undernourishment; (5) social conditions; (6) previous diseases; and (7) post-war conditions.

4. The campaign against tuberculosis has been undertaken by the Philippine Tuberculosis Society and the Bureau and their agencies. They established hospitals, sanatoria, pavilions and dispensaries throughout the Islands and the outstanding phases of their activities were educational, diagnostic, relief, treatment, research and investigations.

5. The prevailing conditions during the three years of Japanese occupation caused an increase of incidence and mortality of tuberculosis due to lack of food or undernourishment, worries and their side effects on the nervous system, hardships in life created by the Japanese brutalities and atrocities, and inadequate medical attendance.

6. There is need of a national call for unification and consolidation of efforts of the various entities working for the prevention and control of the disease. The inconvenience of multiple directorates, overlapping of work, lack of coordination, misunderstanding, and waste of expenditures should be avoided.

7. The creation of the National Council for Tuberculosis Control in the Philippines is proposed.

8. The eradication of tuberculosis in the Philippines as a national problem after Independence on July 4, 1946, calls for the unification of the Filipino people to fight this disease in all corners of the Philippines.