87% hike in HIV cases in July – DoH

A striking 87 percent increase in the number of individuals who tested positive for HIV was reported Friday by the Department of Health (DoH) when it released its surveillance data pointing to 131 new infections in July 2010.

In July last year, only 70 were confirmed positive for HIV.

From January to July 2010, the figures for HIV has reached 940 and 12 of these were reported as AIDS.

From 1984 to 2010, the Philippine HIV/AIDS Registry registered 5,364 HIV and 849 AIDS cases.

The registry said most of the individuals, about 90 percent of them, were males and the most number of infections come from the productive age group, between 20 to 29 years old.

Forty-eight percent of the reported cases were from the National Capital Region (NCR) and 22 out of the 131 new cases were overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

“From 1984 to 2010, there were 849 AIDS cases reported, 71 percent or 602 were males… Of the AIDS cases, there were 323 or 38 percent deaths during the reported period. Sexual contact was the most common mode of HIV transmission, accounting for 93 percent or 788 of all AIDS cases,” it added.

The predominant type of transmission was through males having sex with males (MSM), making up 75 percent of the total figures. The other modes of transmission were through needles by injecting drug users and sexual contact.

Earlier, an expert predicted that the number of HIV/AIDS cases in the country could double by the end of the year and may even surpass last year’s 835 cases.

Dr. Edsel Salvana, associate professor of the infectious disease section of the University of the Philippines (UP), Manila said the Philippines could be facing an “epidemic” of HIV/AIDS cases as numbers continue to rise while newly-infected individuals are getting younger. –JENNY F.MANONGDO, Manila Bulletin