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Sunday, November 5, 2017
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TWO months ago, the United Nations said the Philippines had the highest human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) growth rate in the Asia-Pacific. HIV is a precursor to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
According to the UN, some 10,500 Filipinos were infected with HIV at the end of 2016 – up 140 percent from 2010 when there were just 4,300 infections. Proving to be vulnerable to infection are people belonging to the 15 to 34 age group, or the so-called millennials. The Department of Health earlier reported that of the 629 people diagnosed with HIV in April, 513 of them or over 80 percent belonged to the category.
Even more worrisome is the fact that these statistics go against the global downward trend on HIV infection and AIDS. But the spread of HIV and AIDS can be abated through proper intervention and a focused government policy.
In Congress, for example, the House committee on appropriations approved the funding requirements of the substitute bill to the proposed Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act. The as yet unnumbered bill is a consolidation of 17 House bills filed by congressmen belonging to the majority, minority and independent blocs. The measure aims to prevent the spread of HIV and provide treatment, care and support services to those infected. It also seeks to remove the barriers to HIV- and AIDS-related services by eliminating the climate of stigma that surrounds the epidemic and the people directly and indirectly affected by it.
Moreover, the proposed measure identifies poverty, prostitution, marginalization, drug abuse, and ignorance as some of the factors that aggravate HIV infections. It seeks to address these in that regard. This is clearly a multi-sector approach on curbing HIV and AIDS and also steps up the education and information campaign on all sexually transmitted infections.
Congress should waste no time in deliberating the approving the measure. Many lives are at stake.
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