sexandsensibilities.com

This is the second time that the Department of Health (DOH) under the stewardship of the SASsy Esperanza Cabral has made modern day history. (or is herstory more appropriate?)

First, the DOH gave out condoms to the general public last Valentine’s Day now known as a day of infamy which made the headlines and made the Catholic bishops raise their eyebrows to the high heavens.

And now also for the very first time, the DOH and the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC) brought together the various sectors of society involved in HIV/AID awareness to up the ante on awareness and prevention efforts.

Entitled, “The Call to Action for Broad-based Responses to AIDS by Leaders”, this first ever HIV Summit comes on the heels of the increasing number of HIV cases consistently observed in the last three years.

The SASsy DOH Head opened the summit posing the question, “Why not the condom?”, as a solution to curbing HIV infection along with abstinence and monogamy.

Changing tide of prevalence

The Philippines is considered a low prevalence country in terms of incidence of HIV/AIDS.

Since the first case of HIV was discovered in 1984, there have been a total of 4,817 registered cases of HIV in the Philippines. A reported 838 of these cases have progressed to AIDS. 

However, a change in the rate of infection was noticed.

 In 2000, one HIV case was reported every three days. In 2010, this number changed to 3 cases per day. In February alone, there were 130 new HIV cases recorded in the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry report. 

“The figure is a 177 percent increase compared to the same period last year (47 in 2009),” said Dr. Ferchito Avelino, PNAC Secretariat. “If this pattern continues, were are going to have as many as 1,500 new cases of HIV by the end of this year.”

Avelino noted that for the past three years, MSM has been the primary contributor in the rising cases of HIV/AIDS in the country, whereas in the past, commercial sex workers and seafarers accounted for most of the HIV/AIDS cases.

“MSM are a hidden population.  Means of negotiating sexual encounters is mostly through the internet, which makes it hard to target these populations.  Also, not all MSM identify themselves as gay or bi-sexual, which makes it even harder to indentify these groups.”, Dr. Eric Tayag, Director of the National Epidemiology Center.

“We need to understand the whole gamut of sexual behaviors; from kissing to receptive anal sex to fellatio to get an idea of what context we have to work in.”, Tayag adds.

Another notable change is the rising incidence among injecting drug users.

According to Tayag, from January to March this year, a total of 68 injecting drug users tested positive for HIV.

Records showed that 13 of the 68 cases, who all came from Region 7 or Cebu, were reported in February. While by themselves, the numbers may seem low, Tayag contextualized the situation citing that there  were no cases of HIV incidence among IDUs in 2007 and 2009. In 2008, there was only one.

The practice of sharing needles among drug users contributes to the spread of the AIDS virus at a rate that is even faster than through sexual transmission.

Tayag also spoke about downstream infection referring to injecting drug users intertwining with other “most at risk population” like the commercial sex workers and MSM.

“There are commercial sex workers among injecting drug users, there are injecting drug users who are clients of sex workers. There are injecting drug users who are MSM,” he said.

Research also shows that injecting drug users have the “least knowledge” about HIV/ AIDS, and that condom use among them was also low.

Condom debate

It was hoped that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and the DOH could reach a common ground on the use of condoms and their effectivity in combating the spread of HIV.

The CBCP, in several statements, blatantly condemned the DOH initiative, calling it “vulgar”, “lewd” and “gross” and labeling Cabral as immoral. The CBCP further claimed that condoms do not hinder the spread of HIV, but rather aggravate it because it promotes promiscuity and challenged DOH Secretary Cabral to a debate on the efficacy of condoms.

Bro. Dan Cancino, Jr. of the National Catholic Network on HIV/AIDS under the CBCP told SAS, “At the end of the day, we [the DOH and the CBCP] share the same goal –  the prevention of HIV and AIDS. We just have different ways of doing it.”

The CBCP remained immovable on their anti-condom position and continued to challenge their efficiacy,  but recognized  condom use in serodiscordant couples.