Spiked HIV cases alarming

THE Trade Union Congress of the Philippines is urging the government to declare a national emergency over the human immunodeficiency virus following an increase in the incidence of the deadly disease in the country.

The Philippines now ranks seventh among the countries in the world with an increasing incidence of HIV cases. The top six are Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

“We are calling on the Department of Health to declare a national epidemic on the spread of HIV that leads to AIDS,” Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, said in a statement.

“Let us come out from our complacency and face this battle head on by fully implementing stand-by strategies in order to stop this growing burden. Let’s us fight the spread of disease before it gets to our children.”

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz on Tuesday said she was supporting the TUCP’s call on the government to declare a national emergency over the HIV epidemic.

She also called on private employers to promote healthy lifestyles in the workplaces following an increase in the number of Filipinos contracting work-related diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

“The department seeks to promote a healthy lifestyle through the 40-hour on-line version of the Basic Safety and Health Training Course. The course is mandatory for all safety officers of the Labor Department,” Baldoz said.

“We want more workers to be aware of the ways they can promote a healthy lifestyle in their workplaces.”

The TUCP hopes the government will mount an aggressive intervention program by mobilizing its resources in coping with the growing problem.

TUCP spokesman Alan Tanjusay said that, in the 2014 Global AIDS Response Progress Report to be submitted by the Philippine government to the United Nations, the country had failed this early to meet the 2015 target of reducing the spread of HIV.

The report was prepared by the Department of Health’s National Epidemiology Center, and it says that out of the 1,115 sex workers tested within the first four months of 2014 alone, 20 or 1.8 percent were found to have an HIV infection compared with only 26 or 0.275 percent out of the 9,797 tested for the whole of 2012.

The report also shows that out of the 4,804 men that had sex with men, 160 or 3.3 percent were found to have been infected within the first quarter of the year compared with only 90 or 1.68 percentout of the 5,353 who were tested for the whole of 2012.

Among the people injecting themselves with drugs, meanwhile, 401 or 46.1 percent out of the 869 who were tested were infected with HIV during the first quarter of the year. In contrast, only 13.56 percent or 174 had HIV out of the 1,283 tested for the whole year two years ago.

The other most-at-risk and vulnerable populations were the people living with people infected with HIV and the Filipinos working abroad. Manila Standard