Philippines to take specific actions against HIV/AIDS

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MANILA — The Philippine government has come up with specific action programs to prevent the spread of human immunodeficiency virus infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), a senior government official said Sunday.

The Department of Health’s (DOH’s) specific action programs include targeted education campaign and behavioral intervention, diagnosis and treatment of sexually-transmitted infections, voluntary HIV testing and counseling, managing tuberculosis among people with HIV, provision of anti-retroviral drugs, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and Philippine Health Insurance outpatient HIV package, said Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. in an interview with a state-run radio station.

By implementing these program, the government aims to have a prevalence of less than 66 HIV cases per 100,000 population by 2016.

Citing the latest data, Coloma said that in April this year, there were 393 new HIV cases, 96 percent were males with median age of 28 years.

“Reported modes of transmission were sexual contact and needle sharing among drug users. And males having sex with other males (84 percent) was the predominant type of sexual transmission,” he said.