Tuesday, September 09, 2008 HIV-Aids cases increasing By Henrylito D. Tacio
AIDS does matter! That was the title of my article that appeared in Mod magazine a couple of years back. The article won me the top prize (for print media) in a contest initiated by the Aids Society of the Philippines. It also earned me an all-expense paid trip to attend the regional Aids conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The following year, I was sent to attend the 13th International Aids Conference in Durban, South Africa. There, I was able to meet the Nobel Peace Prize awardee Nelson Mandela and Hollywood film actor Danny Glover (of Lethal Weapon distinction).
A year later, I found myself attending another regional Aids conference in Melbourne, Australia. I hobnobbed with some famous personalities including a well-known Indian actress, a Cambodian princess, Mr. Condom of Thailand, and our very own Margie Holmes.
In all those years, I had been writing about the dreaded disease in order to raise awareness among Filipinos. In 2005, when the population of the country was almost 88 million, there were 12,000 people living with HIV-Aids. Twenty-eight percent of those cases occurred among women (ages 15-49). At that time, less than 1,000 people died due to Aids.
I have forgotten about the disease since I joined as one of the correspondents of Reader's Digest. I concentrated more on diseases that affect children and adults. In addition, I dabbled also on environmental and agricultural reporting.
When I got home recently, after attending a global conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I was shocked to read the news that the number of Filipinos with HIV-Aids is rising.
"Cases of Filipinos inflicted with human immunodeficiency virus-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome have increased despite efforts of the government to institute preventive measures," the report said.
Dr. Francisco Duque, the head of the Department of Health (DOH), said from 20 cases per month recorded in previous years, it climbed to 29 cases per month since last year. "Although the Philippines remains to be a low prevalence country, it should not be a reason to be complacent as statistics and trends show that the number of those infected are on the rise," he warned.
Aside from the Philippines, other countries in Asia that are listed as having "low HIV-Aids prevalence" include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Korea, Fiji, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka.
Despite this fact, the Philippines should be on guard. Dr. Duque said that all the "main ingredients" for an Aids epidemic are already in place. Transmission through heterosexual contact decreased from 193 in 2006 to 139 in 2007. But transmission from homosexual and bisexual contacts has increased in the same years: from 81 to 107 in the former and 26 to 74 in the latter.
A health department report on HIV-Aids in the country found that 48 percent of female commercial sex workers, 27 percent of injection drug users, and 49 percent of men who have sex with men and people with multiple sex partners used condom, which can help protect someone from being infected with the virus.
The report cited sexual intercourse (88 percent) as the leading mode of transmission. "Aids obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide," commented Susan Sontag. Oscar-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor quipped, "It is bad enough that people are dying of Aids, but no one should die of ignorance."
It happened to Felix, a 28-year-old business executive. He knows about the disease from magazines and even from watching television. But one time, he went out with friends and did one stupid thing. Drunk and on his way home, he picked a beautiful sexual worker. He had sex with her for the night. That was his first and last.
He had forgotten the incident, until he applied for a working visa going to the United States. He had to undergo a thorough medical check-up. The result of his testing: he was HIV-positive.
In India, a new Aids threat is rising in numerous call centers, where young staff are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple partners in affairs developed during night shifts.
"They have all the money. They huddle together in the night. They are young, they are sexually active, so naturally they start," said Dr. Suniti Solomon, who detected the first HIV case in India in 1986. She added that at least three or four call center workers visit her clinic every week to get tested for HIV because they are worried after having unprotected sex.
If this is happening in India, will this happen in the Philippines too? The country has its own shares of call centers. Even here in Davao, those who are working in call centers are young and sexually active.
HIV is present in all body fluids of an infected person but is concentrating in blood, semen, and vaginal fluids. It is present in virtually all body tissues and organs including the brain and spinal cord. It can be found in tears, saliva, and breast milk although these are not considered significant routes of infection.
There are four critical conditions that must be fulfilled if HIV is to be transmitted by a particular route. First, HIV must be present in a body fluid (semen, vaginal fluids, blood or blood products). Second, HIV must survive during the period it is out of the body. Third, HIV must get into a person (skin forms a barrier to HIV so the virus must enter where the skin is damaged or more delicate, e.g. the mucus membrane of the anus and vagina). Lastly, sufficient HIV must be transferred into the person to make an infective dose.
