From only one new case of HIV infection per day in 2008, 27 Filipinos now get infected with HIV every day, according to the January report of the Department of Health’s (DOH) Epidemiology Bureau.
This is actually a continuation of the ongoing upward trend in the number of Filipinos getting infected with the HIV. On a daily basis, the number of Filipinos infected with HIV has increased to: four in 2010, nine in 2014, and 17 in 2014.
For the January figures, 804 new HIV cases were reported. This is 50% higher to the number registered for the same period in 2015.
Most of the HIV cases (97%) are male; and the median age was 28 (age range: 17-66 years). More than half belong to the 25-34 age range; while 28% are youth aged 15-24 years old.
Reported modes of transmission (MOT) were: sexual contact (771) and needle sharing among injecting drug users (IDU). Eighty-nine percent of those transmitted through sexual contact were among males who have sex with males (MSM).
In January, 31 adolescents aged 17-19 years were reported. All adolescents were infected through sexual contact (six male-female sex, 19 male-male sex, and six sex with both males and females).
Transactional sex – i.e. people who engage in transactional sex are those who report that they regularly accept payment for sex, pay for sex, or do both – has been emerging as a problematic area in dealing with the spread of HIV. In January 2016, 10% (84) of the reported cases engaged in transactional sex. Most (94%) were male aged from 18-48 years (median: 29 years) while five were female whose ages ranged from 25-50 years (median: 26 years). Fifty-four (43) percent of males who engaged in transactional sex were the ones who paid for sex while 3 of the females engaged in both.
A total of 2,621 cases reported from December 2012 to January 2016 were people who engaged in transactional sex. Ninety-six percent (2,509) were male. Of the 2,621 cases, 1,438 (55%) paid for sex, 771 (29%) accepted payment for sex, and 412 (16%) engaged in both.
The regions with the highest number of reported cases for January 2016 were: National Capital Region (NCR) with 370 (46%) cases, Region 4A with 130 (16%) cases, Region 7 with 71 (9%) cases, Region 3 with 60 (7%) cases, and Region 11 with 36 (4%) cases. One hundred thirty-seven (17%) cases came from the rest of the country.
The first case of HIV infection was reported in the Philippines in 1984. Since then until January, there have been 31,160 reported HIV cases. Eighty-one percent (25,145) of all the 31,160 diagnosed cases in the Philippines were reported only in the past five years, from January 2011 to January 2016.