Red Cross alarmed over rising HIV cases

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) yesterday expressed concern over the rising cases of HIV/AIDS in the country, saying that this threatens the blood supply.

PRC chairman Richard Gordon said the AIDS epidemic could compromise the quality of blood supply and urged the government to act strongly to reverse the trend.

“Any one with contaminated blood in his veins will be a threat. When push comes to shove, one has to be extremely careful with testing the blood, as not all centers in the country are as careful as the Red Cross is in testing blood,” he told The STAR.

Gordon made the statement on the heels of the announcement of the Department of Health (DOH) that from January to October this year, there are now 6,552 people diagnosed with HIV.

This is 37 times higher than the 174 new HIV cases documented in the entire year of 2001, he said.

In 2000, one HIV case is diagnosed every three days, while this year, one case is detected every hour.

The DOH has projected that by 2022, some 133,000 Filipinos will acquire HIV and this will cost the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. some P4 billion a year for outpatient package alone.

The PRC has also observed an increase in donated blood infected with HIV. It assured the public, however, that these blood donations were not transfused.

Records showed in 2013, of the 314,000 blood units tested by PRC, .02 percent or 85 donations were found infected with the virus.

In 2014, a total of 158 donations or .04 percent of the 355,000 units tested were infected.

From January to August 2015, a total of 116 donations or .05 percent of the 223,474 units tested yielded the virus.

Gordon assured the public that the PRC has been strict in testing and in screening blood donors not only for HIV/AIDS, but for other blood-borne diseases like malaria and hepatitis.

He, however, expressed concern over the 19-day window period or the period between the infection and the appearance of the virus that can be detected during HIV testing.

“You will not see the virus during that 19 days so I am advocating that we use the nucleic acid test (in screening a person for HIV). But even with that, you will only have four days for the virus to hide but at least its not 19 days,” said.

Gordon added that it is not only the PRC that should adopt nucleic acid test but also the DOH. –Sheila Crisostomo (The Philippine Star)