HIV/AIDS in the Philippines

While the UN recently released a generally positive report on the worldwide reduction of the number of new infections per year, the progress is still very fragile, as quoted in the New York Times:

Fewer people are being infected with the virus that causes AIDS than at the epidemic's peak, but progress against the disease is still halting and fragile, the United Nations' AIDS-fighting agency reported Tuesday.

Unfortunately, for the Philippines, the trend appears to be moving in the opposite direction. A recent report from AFP includes the following:

There were 1,305 confirmed new HIV infections in first 10 months of the year, compared with 835 for the whole of 2009…

Apart from sexual contact, 11 percent of all new Philippine HIV cases were transmitted through needle-sharing by injecting drug users, and one percent were transmitted by a mother to her baby.

While the infections are growing rapidly, unfortunately the provision of care is not, according to the UNDP’s recent study (source: M&C Health News)

UNDP Country Director Renaud Meyer said that according to a baseline study conducted in 2009, one in two people living with HIV/AIDS in the Philippines ‘had their rights abused.’ ‘Because of their HIV status, these people were detained, quarantined or segregated, forced to submit themselves to medical or health procedures, refused provision of basic health services and denied health or life insurance,’ he said.

We value the importance of this type of information as well as the capacity to improve healthcare and infrastructure in the Philippines. A few years ago, we embarked on one of the first studies in the Philippines on a subset of the general population to learn more about Sexually Transmitted Infections. We would love to further our research in this regard and hope that together we can change the future of the nation. If you are interested in helping us with future research, please email us.