OFWs ‘extremely vulnerable’ to HIV, says Labor group

MANILA, Philippines—Worried over the growing number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) infected with HIV, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) wants government agencies to build up efforts to heighten awareness of the disease among foreign-bound laborers.

“There is no question that once exposed to foreign cultures, OFWs, especially sailors, tend to put their guard down. As a result, they risk contracting HIV, mainly through unsafe sex practices,” said TUCP secretary general and former Senator Ernesto Herrera said in a statement.

“This is why OFWs now account for one-third of all our HIV and full-blown AIDS cases,” said Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resources development.

Herrera urged the Department of Health (DoH), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) to devote more resources to preventive education campaigns targeted at foreign-bound as well as returning migrant laborers.

As of June 2009, the DoH’s National AIDS Registry listed a total of 3,951 HIV cases, of which 815 have already developed into full-blown AIDS. Of the 815 AIDS patients, 314 have already died.

OFWs accounted for 1,254 of all cases, or 32 percent of those in the registry, including 264 full-blown AIDS cases.

Herrera, meanwhile, urged the Senate and House committees on health “to find out whether the Philippines is not being left out in the scramble for HIV/AIDS treatment.”

“Our lawmakers should ascertain whether every Filipino in the DoH’s AIDS Registry is covered by adequate treatment, and whether every patient who needs antiretroviral drugs has ready access to the medication,” Herrera said.

A UN official recently expressed concern over the increasing number of HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines.

Renaud Meyer, director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Philippines, said the fact that the country reported 85 new cases in one month is troublesome.

“We are not doing good in controlling HIV. Instead of reversing and halting it, we see increasing cases,” he said, adding that the world body is allocating $1.5 million to help the Philippines fight the disease.

The DoH said that 362 people were newly infected in the first semester of this year, with 85 cases in May and 40 cases in June.

Some five million Asians are living with HIV, many of them in Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations’ multi-agency program on HIV/AIDS.

UNAIDS said it expects a million Asians to be treated with antiretroviral drugs between now and 2011. At present, UNAIDS said some 565,000 Asians are already receiving the drugs. –INQUIRER.net