Earlier this year, this corner wrote about the burdensome impact of the rigid medical screenings done at St. Luke’s Medical Extension Clinic (SLEC) on pending immigrant visa applications at the US Embassy in Manila, specifically in relation to the required tubercular testing of visa applicants.

As noted previously, medical screening delays caused many visa applicants to give up their precious visa interview slots after years and even decades of waiting for an interview appointment.

Adding insult to injury, some applicants learned, for the very first time, that they were TB-positive.

Worse, a few unlucky souls were forced to shell out extra sums of money to get tested and treated a number of times to make sure that only a harmless speck of the tubercular bacteria remained inside their bodies. Yet, like a rerun of a never-ending TV program, the tubercular menace did not bid its farewell, as it usually did, even after the applicants finished their medicals and obtained their visas.

Instead, with leech-like behavior, the bacterial intruder kept clinging stubbornly to the fragile respiratory systems of US-bound Filipino immigrants, flying over the vast Pacific Ocean to spread its pestiferous abomination inside the US mainland.

Mindful of the menace’s potential epidemiological impact on the US public health system but wary of hurting the feelings of its brown siblings in Asia, the US government nonetheless refrained from suspending the issuance of immigrant visas to Filipino applicants altogether.

Instead, visas were issued on the condition that immigrants with unresolved medical (TB) issues must undergo post-arrival testing and treatment in the US. As a result, some of the newly arrived Filipino immigrants, their attorneys and relatives, were left scratching their heads at this baffling yet humiliating turn of events.

Initially, it was thought that Filipinos were being unfairly singled out for this scandalous immigration TB witch hunt.

Until a surprising revelation came out recently.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 8.2 million people around the world were newly diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2023. This was the highest recorded figure since 1995, when the WHO began global monitoring of TB cases, increasing by more than half a million from the previous year’s total of 7.5 million.

By 2023, TB surpassed Covid-19 as the world’s leading infectious disease killer, ending the lives of 1.25 million people across the globe.

Surprisingly, out of the 8.2 million total global cases, the Philippines ranked among the top five countries with the highest TB burdens, placing third with 6.8 percent of the total cases after India (26 percent) and Indonesia (10 percent).

Indeed, in 2023 alone, there were 612,534 newly diagnosed TB cases in the Philippines, according to the country’s health authorities. Although this was lower than the previous year’s estimated figure of 737,000 new cases, the combined figures alarmingly exceeded pre-Covid-19 levels. Health experts believe the actual number of cases could be higher.

Thus, it came as no surprise that Uncle Sam, the leading aid benefactor of the Philippines, donated the equivalent of P1.15 billion ($21 million) to help combat the spread of tuberculosis in the country. Whether or not this is sufficient to completely eradicate or at least substantially reduce the disease in the Philippines is an open question.

In the meanwhile, many immigrant and fiancée/fiancé visa applicants, as well as some of the newly admitted US immigrants from the Philippines, continue to suffer the indignity of having to undergo the expanded pre-interview and post-arrival TB testing and treatment requirements.

At this time, it is anybody’s guess as to when the credits will finally begin to roll on this never-ending (TB) story.