RP HIV/AIDS Responses
Finding Ways. Still.
By Mikee dela Cruz
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 2009

There are, according to the National AIDS Registry from the National Epidemiology Centre of the Department of Health, 3,589 reported cases of HIV infection as of end-December 2008. 

However, considering that the Philippines has a population estimated to be well over 92 million, the infection rate does not elicit the attention it should deserve – instead, it is considered as ONLY 3,589, with the HIV prevalence below 1% in all groups of the society.

The seeming lack of worry is, nonetheless, a source of concern, what with “the annual newly reported HIV cases rose sharply from 200 in 2004 to 528 in 2008, and nearly tripled in 15 to 24 year-olds from 41 in 2007 to 110 in 2008,” states the UNICEF (UNICEF.org) in its summation of the HIV/AIDS profile of the Philippines. 

Several factors have been identified to have possibly led to continued considerable increase of new HIV infections in the country, i.e. “high rates of sexually transmitted infection (STI); a substantially large sex industry, networks of men having sex with men with behaviours putting them at considerable risk of HIV infection; a legal situation which does not support HIV prevention services to injecting drug users; an increasing number of HIV cases in adolescents and young people, large numbers of adolescents living or working under conditions which make them very vulnerable to sexual abuse or exploitation, combined with overall low awareness of STI and HIV risk and low condom use,” UNICEF states.

Amazingly, even if the HIV situation in the Philippines is considered “hidden and growing,” with more realistic figures of infected Filipinos estimated to already reach way, way over 10,000 (from the registered over 3,000), the Philippine government’s share only reaches less than 25% of the total spending in the Philippines on HIV and/or AIDS – in fact, 65% of the funding for the Philippine HIV and/or AIDS response comes from external sources, mainly through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), with domestic and other private sources making up 24% and 11%, respectively.

This is why knowing the very bodies taking charge in the fight against HIV and/or AIDS becomes important.

And Outrage Magazine does exactly this.