Manila expands health insurance to cover Aids

Move targets HIV-hit overseas workers.

Manila: The government has expanded its health insurance scheme to cover Aids following reports that the number of overseas Filipino workers with the disease has been increasing, a top official has told Gulf News.

People with HIV/Aids can get up to 30,000 pesos (Dh2,500) in annual reimbursement for anti-retroviral therapy drugs, said Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth) officer Ramon Aristoza.

The Health Department’s treatment centres must certify HIV/Aids cases, he said. The workers must be members of the Overseas Worker Programme to benefit from Philhealth’s expanded coverage, said Aristoza, adding that Philhealth’s expanded coverage began on October 1.

“It is in support to the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal to halt or reverse incidence of HIV/Aids by 2015,” he said. Meanwhile, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines secretary general Ernesto Herrera said, “One out of every four Filipinos diagnosed as HIV positive is an OFW.”

Median age

“The median age of HIV positive OFWs is 36 years. They are in the prime of their lives and productivity,” said Herrera. “This is very unfortunate.”

“OFWs are particularly vulnerable to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. They are exposed to foreign cultures that tend to abet high-risk behaviour…,” Herrera said.

“Sailors are often deluged by commercial sex workers at their foreign ports of call, and they have the money to pay for these services.” By end of October 2010, some 1,500 OFWs were found to be HIV positive. “They now comprise 26 per cent of the 5,729 reported cases in the National Aids Registry,” said Herrera. –Barbara Mae Dacanay, Bureau Chief, Gulf News