Life-and-death issue

Four hundred thirty-one HIV cases—the highest number of cases reported in a month this year. The Department of Health announced that number and that claim only in June. But a month later, that figure would be breached with 449 new cases, a record high that didn’t last long. In October, the number climbed to 491, a new benchmark that’s about 66 percent higher than the 295 cases reported in the same month last year.

There’s no other way to put it: The Philippines is facing the risk of a full-blown epidemic with the rapid and unabated rise of new cases involving human immunodeficiency virus infection, the sickness that leads to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). While officially still a low-incidence country compared to other parts of the world that had seen an explosion of HIV infections over the last couple of decades, the Philippines now counts some 15,774 recorded cases since 1984, with about 4,072 of them coming in only since January.

The numbers are undoubtedly on the low end; the shame and stigma still associated with the disease in these parts all but ensure that many more cases are left unreported. More tragically, the social baggage attached to any mention of HIV or AIDS condemns scores of sick people to wither away in fatal invisibility, unable to access the medical care and attention that would at least help them keep the worst effects of the illness at bay and allow them to continue to lead productive lives for many more years.

Other countries are making good strides in this respect. In a statement issued to mark World AIDS Day last Sunday, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reported that with “scientific breakthroughs, visionary leadership and precision programming … people living with HIV can live long and healthy lives, can now protect their partners from becoming infected with the virus, and can keep their children free from HIV.”

“For the first time we can say that we are beginning to control the epidemic and not that the epidemic is controlling us,” said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe.

The Philippines, however, cannot claim to be on the winning column just yet. While new HIV infections worldwide are markedly down since 2001—“AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 30 percent since the peak in 2005. In 2012, 1.6 million people died from AIDS-related causes worldwide compared to 2.3 million in 2005,” said the UNAIDS—the Philippines is paddling to a different current as one of only three countries—Indonesia and Pakistan are the other two—where UN records say the number of new infections among adults and children is in fact on the rise since 2001.

The rise has been particularly acute among men who have sex with men, a demographic that accounts for some 445 of the 491 new cases in October. The culprit is unprotected sex. In the early decades of HIV and AIDS, the first cases often involved overseas Filipino workers. The October figures show that the landscape has shifted; OFWs accounted for only 37 new cases—but all still through unsafe sex.

The implications are clear. Unprotected sex, whether done by straight or gay persons of whatever age, remains the deadliest form of HIV transmission, and should therefore ideally receive the most attention in terms of public education and awareness. Countries like Thailand have shown that intensive education campaigns on the proper use of condoms and other safe sex practices do contribute to a significant decline in HIV cases.

But the Philippines, a country still in the grip of pervasive Catholic hang-ups about sex and sexuality, cannot even begin to discuss condom use and the larger issue of sexual and reproductive health without inviting denunciations from the Church and conservative sectors of society. The landmark Reproductive Health Law has remained unenforced, stymied for now at the Supreme Court. And, in the face of a growing epidemic, the government appears to be complacently business as usual, despite the increasingly frightening HIV statistics coming out of the DOH that should by now have set its hair on fire.

Ifugao Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat is among the few sufficiently alarmed to call Congress’ attention on the need to revise and strengthen the HIV/AIDS Law. “We need a stronger law that provides more resources to prevent HIV infections as well as help those who are already infected,” he said. The Aquino administration should take its cue from the ominous numbers; this is a priority issue—nay, a life-and-death issue.