Enforce HIV/AIDS guidelines, DOLE asked

A resolution requesting the City Health Office and the Department of Labor and Employment to implement and enforce DOLE Department Order No. 102-10, Series of 2010, was approved by the Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod Wednesday.

DOLE D.O. 102-10, Series of 2010 is the “Guidelines for the implementationof HIV/AIDS prevention and control in the workplace program in order to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS at their respective workplace and establishment in private sector.”

Authored by Councilor Catalino Alisbo, the resolution said the recent campaign of the CHO and Police Station 1 of the Bacolod City Police Officeagainst mendicants and commercial sex workers in the Bacolod Public Plaza, who are almost positive with sexually transmitted diseases, needs the attention of the CHO.

The increased number of Filipino workers affected with HIV/AIDS in the Philippines had already reached the point where every localgovernment unit must now actively and seriously mobilize their CHO and encourage its community to participate in the control and prevention of HIV/AIDS, it said.

According to the Department of Health, the number of human immune deficiency virus and AIDS cases has surpassed the 7,000 mark with the 178 new HIV/AIDS cases recorded last June 2011, the resolution said.

The DOH, Philippine HIV/AIDS Registry, monitored177 new HIV cases and one AIDS case last month, bringing to 7,031 casesin the country since 1984. Of this, 875 have progressed into AIDS andthis year’sfigureis 63 percenthigher compared to the 109 cases registered during the same period in 2010, it said.

The DOH observed that “males having sex with males (MSM)”was the predominant transmission of HIV/AIDS, accounting for 83 percent of the 173 persons who were infected through sexual contact, the resolution said.*CGS