ANGELES CITY – A non-profit, non-government group said here yesterday that the “incidence” of human-immuno deficiency virus (HIV) in the country has reached “epidemic proportions” amid new studies naming the Philippines as one of the seven countries worldwide where the number of HIV cases grow by over 25 percent monthly.
In an HIV summit sponsored here yesterday by the Jaycees International, Dr. Jonathan Fontilla, advocacy officer of the Philippine Business Sector Response to HIV and AIDS (PBSR-HA), said this was revealed in a new global report of the United Nations (UN).
The 25 percent monthly increase of reported HIV cases was also noted in six other countries, namely, Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia, Kazahkstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Fontilla noted that in this city, four more cases of HIV have been reported so far this year, on top of 12 new HIV cases and two AIDS cases reported last year.
He said that the mode of transmission of the reported ailments in this city was largely through sexual contact. In 2011, eight cases were through heterosexual contact, and three each through homosexual and bisexual contacts, he added.
Fontilla said that nationwide, there are 9,163 cases of reported HIV cases since 1984 up to last March. “I suspect that the actual number could be double or even triple this number,” he added.
This, as he expressed alarm over the over 25 percent monthly increase in the number of reported HIV cases in the country.
“What is alarming is not the total number of HIV cases we have as other countries have much more cases but rather, the incidence or rate of increase of new HIV cases being reported monthly,” he stressed.
“The rate of monthly increase or incidence in HIV cases is in epidemic proportions. There is no doubt about that,” he stressed.
Fontilla cited statistics showing that in March of 2010, there were only 120 new HIV cases reported, and in the same month last year, another 274 cases. Last March, however, the number of new HIV cases totaled 313, he noted.
Fontilla said most of victims of the new HIV cases from last January to March were males, numbering 757, as against only 42 females. Of them, 215 were aged from 15 to 24, he noted.
Of this number, 367 cases or 51 percent resulted from homosexual contact, 258 cases or 36 percent from bisexual contact, and 98 cases or 14 percent from heterosexual contact, statistics said.
Fontilla also took note of the 73 HIV cases that resulted from the common use of drug injections in the same period.
He also noted that figures last March indicated that 47 percent of the new HIV cases were reported in the National Capital Region, 15 percent in Region 7, 13 percent in Region 4-A, eight percent in Region 3 which covers Angeles City, six percent in Region 2, and 11 percent in the rest of the country.
