From the Provincial Government Media Affairs Office Among the sectors vulnerable to AIDS, the overseas workers pose at the nearest brink of HIV infection, based on the slant of the Joint UN program on HIV and Migration.
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), which is a collaborator of the program, raised concern on the increased vulnerability of overseas workers, along with the cases in thriving sex industry, high STI rates, low condom use, injecting drug users sharing unclean needles, sexually active young people, and the wide gap between knowledge and practice.
According to Joel D. Atienza of the National AIDS Program of the Department of Health that there are already 2,857 HIV/AIDS cases from 1984 to May this year.
Based on the trend, 72 percent asymptomatic and that the ratio was 100 HIV cases per year from 1993 to 2003. It rose to 200 cases per year from 2004-2005. Then it became 306 cases in 2006. On the ratio, 64 percent were males, 67 percent are aging 20 to 39 years old.
The DOH study also found out that 87 percent of the transmission were through sexual intercourse. Varied occupations comprise the 35 percent of the HIV registered cases from eight million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
From the record of the NEC–DOH as of December 2005, the estimated total number of HIV infected persons, 73 percent of the injecting drug users had sex in the past 12 months, while 81 percent of sexually active injecting drug users had sex with permanent partners and 84 percent of their partners were non- injecting drug users. Eighty-nine percent did not use condoms the last time they had sex.
The NEC-DOH study also found out that 34percent of sexually active injecting drug users had sex with commercial sex workers, of whom 58 percent did not use condoms the last time they had sex, while 21 percent of sexually active injecting drug users sold sex and 58 percent did not use condoms the last time they had sex.
On this, the Joint UN Program on HIV and Migration focuses on implementing programs and projects in line with the AIDS Prevention and Control Law or Republic Act 8504 and the AIDS Medium Term Plan.
For this activity, the program gets support from the national government agencies and the local government units, and foreign funding agencies including the UN Agencies, USAID, WHO, JICA, WB, EC, Kfw, Global Fund.
Atienza said that the HIV cases might be “quite small because of low prevalence rate, but if prevalence rates increase among OFWs, it will have direct impact on GNP.
To brace, the program on HIV and migration aims for optimal availability and utilization of comprehensive prevention, treatment, care and support information, services and commodities by most-at-risk and vulnerable populations, people living with HIV/AIDS and their affected families and communities, and the general public.
The program also aims for the provision of equitable and sustainable information, services and commodities to all those who need them (most-at-risk and vulnerable populations, people living with HIV/AIDS and their affected families and communities, and the general public).
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