CEBU – While health authorities are scrambling to build up the country’s Ebola preparedness, another disease – the Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV – is claiming the lives of more Filipinos every month.
From January to August this year alone, a total of 113 deaths – 109 males and four females – were reported among Filipinos with HIV, according to House Assistant Majority Leader and Cebu Rep. Gerald Anthony Gullas.
The 113 deaths in the first eight months of the year brought to 1,052 (862 males and 190 females) the cumulative number of known AIDS deaths in the country since government began passive surveillance of the disease in 1984.
Gullas said the highest number of fatalities from January to August occurred in the 25-29 age bracket, with 46 deaths or 41%. The number of known AIDS deaths in the country has been on the rise since 2012, when the Department of Health established an official reporting form.
Only 68 AIDS deaths were reported in 2011. The number jumped to 176 in 2012 and 179 in 2013.
Gullas said like Ebola, HIV still does not have any known cure. However, anti-retroviral therapy (ART) may slow down the ailment. He said a total of 7,380 Filipinos living with HIV were on ART in 19 treatment hubs across the country as of August 2014, according to the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry.
A total of 3,908 new HIV cases were discovered countrywide from January to August, up 24 percent versus the 3,154 detected in the same eight-month period in 2013. Central Visayas, which includes Cebu province, has the third-highest concentration of newly diagnosed HIV cases.
Some 37% of all new HIV cases are being spotted in Metro Manila; 19% Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon; 10% in Central Visayas; and 9% in Central Luzon. As of August, the aggregate number of cases in the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry has already reached 20,424 of which some 93% or 18,999 cases were infected through sexual contact.
The rest were infected on account of needle-sharing among injecting drug users (5% or 962 cases); mother-to-child transmission (less than 1% or 65 cases); contaminated blood transfusion (less than 1% or 20 cases); needle prick injury (less than 1% or three cases). No data was available for 2% or 375 cases.
HIV causes AIDS, or the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which destroys the human body’s biological defenses against disease.
Already approved by the 125-member appropriations committee, House Bill 549 sets increased public funding and forceful new strategies to suppress the spread of HIV, Gullas said, adding, the new strategies include the establishment local AIDS councils with focused prevention plans at the regional, provincial, city and municipal levels.
“The bill also mandates specific agencies to provide definite programs to alleviate the conditions of the growing number of Filipinos living with HIV. Under the bill, a case-management mechanism will be in place for every person living with HIV. Affected families, including children orphaned by AIDS, will also be afforded ample care and support,” he said.
The country’s existing AIDS Prevention and Control Law – Republic Act 8504 – is 16 years old, and has become outdated, he said. (Cebu Examiner)
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