Saudi gov’t wants strict medical AIDS test for OFWs

The Saudi Arabian government yesterday urged Philippine medical clinics undertaking medical exams for overseas Filipino workers bound for the Middle East to undertake stricter measures in examining OFWs suspected of having the HIV/AIDS disease.

Saudi Ambassador to the Philippines Mohammad Amen Wali was reacting to a news report that the Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS Registry showed that from January 1984 to July 2009, there were 4,021 HIV cases in the Philippines, 817 of whom have progressed into AIDS.

Health officials said 3,609 of the 4,021 cases were infected through sexual contact.

From 2007, a total of 477 cases or 38 percent of sexual transmission was homosexual while 423 or 34 percent were heterosexual and 341 or 28 percent were bisexual.

The Department of Health (DoH) had registered 432 HIV/AIDS cases from January to July 2009.

Seventy of the cases were recorded in July with “bisexual contact as the most predominant type of sexual transmission.”

Dr. Rodolfo Punzalan, Chairman and President of GCC Accredited Medical Clinics Association (GAMCA), which is authorized by the Middle East countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman to perform medical exams on OFWs bound for those countries, said that his association has taken the necessary steps to ferret out suspected HIV/AIDS cases among OFWs.

Punzalan also vowed to strictly follow the rules imposed by Ministries of Health of the countries mentioned through the 17 clinics of GAMCA in Metro Manila.

Gamca Philippines and the DoH in particular with the National Reference Laboratory in San Lazaro Hospital housing the STD/AIDS Cooperative Central Laboratory work in cooperation to provide a healthy workplace environment both here and abroad.–Michaela P. del Callar, Daily Tribune