New HIV cases up by 40% in November — lawmaker

Some 112 Filipinos, including eight overseas workers, were diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus in November, up from 80 cases reported in the same period in the previous year, a lawmaker said over the weekend. For this year alone, 1,417 Filipinos were infected with the virus, Liquefied Petroleum Gas Manufacturers Association party-list Rep. Arnel Ty said in a statement, citing data from the HIV and AIDS Registry of the Department of Health (DOH). Ty said that based on the records, 5,841 Filipinos have been infected with HIV since passive surveillance of the disease began in 1984. Citing the report, Ty also said that 11 new units of voluntarily donated blood in November were tested positive for HIV, bringing the total number to 135 in the January-November period. There were 89 infected units of voluntarily donated blood in 2009, according to the report. “The growing number of new HIV cases and donated blood units found contaminated betrays the creeping spread of the disease in the country," Ty said. The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) had said that overseas Filipino workers — accounting for one in every four HIV-infected Filipinos — are highly susceptible to the virus. They are exposed to foreign cultures that encourage high-risk behavior, including commercial sex without the use of prophylactics, TUCP said. Ty is now pushing for increased government funding for preventive HIV/AIDS education. “It would be sensible for us to spend a lot more for preventive education to reduce the future human suffering due to HIV/AIDS and avoid the potentially larger costs associated with the treatment of more patients," he said. Dr. Edsel Salvana, a specialist for infectious disease medicine, previously warned that by 2015, the government would have to spend P1 billion annually to acquire the anti-retroviral drugs needed to treat HIV-infected Filipinos. Unless effective strategies would be put in place, the number of HIV-infected Filipinos could reach 46,000 by 2015, the Philippine National AIDS Council noted. Ty is calling on the Congress to revisit the 1998 AIDS Prevention and Control Law and reinforce the fight against the highly destructive disease. - JE/KBK, GMANews.TV