A MinXray Donation Brings Ilocos Sur Closer to Being TB Free

Written by Robyn Waite

On the stage of the Provincial Family Livelihood and Development Center in Vigan City, the Provincial Health Office of Ilocos Sur marked Provincial Lung Month 2026 on August 24. A prominent feature of the occasion was the handover of one of our ultra-portable X-Ray systems with artificial intelligence from Qure.ai. This system was donated by MinXray, Inc., to support tuberculosis (TB) and broader lung health screening across one of the Philippines’ highest-performing — and most determined — health systems and teams.

Governor Jerry Singson said “the activity marked an important milestone in strengthening the province’s efforts toward accessible, timely, and technology-enabled tuberculosis screening and diagnosis. Through the generous donation of MinXray, Inc., this technology will support healthcare workers in bringing chest X-ray services closer to communities, particularly in reaching underserved and high-risk populations.”

The timing of the donation matters. Just months earlier, the World Health Organization's Global Tuberculosis Report 2025 ranked the Philippines as the third-highest TB burden country in the world, up from fourth the year before, accounting for roughly 6.8% of all TB cases globally. Behind that statistic are people — by some estimates, close to 100 Filipinos lose their lives to TB every day.

“TB today is changing shape,” said Dr. Sam Tisay, whose advocacy first brought MinXray's technology to the province's attention and resulted in this donation taking place. “More cases are subclinical: asymptomatic, silent, and spreading before anyone even coughs. TB-HIV co-infections are also rising. And TB doesn’t just take away a patient’s health, it takes away a breadwinner’s income, a child’s schooling, and a family’s future. Survivors are often left with post-TB complications like chronic obstructive lung disease and lifelong disability. This is not just a medical issue. It is an economic and social emergency.”

A Province That Earned It

Ilocos Sur wasn't selected to receive this donation by chance. In the Department of Health's “Race to End TB” awards, Bantay, Ilocos Sur earned multiple Gold recognitions for case detection, case notification, and preventive treatment. Among the four provinces of Region I, Ilocos Sur posted the highest Drug-Susceptible TB treatment success rate at 97.23%.

“Ilocos Sur didn't just meet the standard. It set it,” Dr. Sam said. “And that is precisely why it deserves the tools to go further.”

What those tools make possible is a dramatic compression of time. TB diagnosis in the Philippines has historically taken 20 to 60 days. With an AI-assisted, ultraportable X-ray, a screening result is available in roughly 60 seconds — time enough, as Dr. Sam put it, “to catch a case before it spreads to a household.”

A Personal Homecoming

For MinXray's Michael Cairnie, the ceremony closed a loop that started more than a decade ago. Cairnie first worked in the Philippines around 2013, supporting the national TB prevalence survey with MinXray's CMDR systems — equipment that, while portable by the standards of the day, meant moving several hundred pounds of X-ray gear, stands, digital imaging components, and gasoline generators into the field.

“Compare that with the technology here today,” Cairnie told the audience. The Impact system donated to Ilocos Sur weighs approximately 45 pounds, runs on battery power, and combines digital imaging with artificial intelligence in a unit built to be carried directly into even the most remote or austere communities. “In a little more than a decade, we have gone from moving hundreds of pounds of equipment into the field to carrying a 45-pound digital X-ray system capable of AI-assisted screening. That fundamentally changes where we can go, how quickly we can deploy, and who we can reach.”

Technology Alone Isn't the Point

Cairnie was intentional in framing MinXray’s donation not as an end point, but as a start. “One of the most important lessons we have learned from deployments around the world is that technology alone does not make a public-health program successful,” he said. “Community health workers are absolutely essential. They know their communities. They build trust. They identify people who need screening, mobilize people to participate and help connect those requiring additional evaluation with care. While the technology provides the diagnostic capability community health workers ultimately provide the reach.”

That framing extends to how MinXray thinks about success itself. “We should not measure success simply by the number of X-ray systems purchased or deployed,” Cairnie said. “We should measure success by how many people those systems actually reach and screen.” A single Impact Wireless radiography system, incorporated into an active community screening program and carried by trained health workers from barangay to barangay, can screen hundreds of people a day, saving and improving lives while helping to stop the spread of the world’s deadliest infectious disease and other respiratory infections.

Two Countries, One Goal

The Provincial Health Office extended its appreciation to MinXray, Inc., Qure.ai, the Department of Health – Center for Health Development 1, the Provincial Government of Ilocos Sur, and the many local officials, health workers, and partners who made the day possible. For his part, Cairnie thanked Dr. Sam directly for initiating the conversation that led to the donation — a sentiment she returned in kind, closing her own remarks with a word of thanks to “Mr. Michael Cairnie from MinXray, Inc., the generous soul who started this all.”

“MinXray is proud to be an American company, and we are proud of our long relationship with the Philippines,” Cairnie said. “We hope that American innovation, combined with the extraordinary commitment of Philippine healthcare professionals and community health workers, will allow us to find more disease, reach more people, and connect more people to care — and ultimately, help make both of our countries safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”

Ilocos Sur has already shown what discipline and dedication can achieve in the fight against TB. Now, with a screening tool that gives a presumptive reading measured in seconds rather than weeks, the province — and the community health workers who will carry this system into communities — have a new tool to match that ambition and accelerate their mission of achieving a TB free province.