Majority of AIDS victims are OFWs

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) make up a majority of those found positive for HIV which causes AIDS, said a senior official who added that Filipino seamen are the most vulnerable to infection.

As of last July, the health department recorded 17 new HIV cases, most of them men in the 22-45 age group, said Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit.

The health department's National HIV Sentinel Surveillance System (NHSSS) has observed a trend that HIV-AIDS cases have increased between 12 to 15 a month, beyond the record of 10 a month, said Dayrit.

The health department recorded 1,733 HIV cases from January, 1984, to July this year. Of these, 572 have become AIDS victims, 246 of whom have died. These numbers should be multiplied by 100 because the government is limited to monitoring only health workers, said Dayrit.

He noted that the health department gets data from voluntarily reported cases.

The department's HIV/AIDS surveillance is done in two ways, passive and active, Dayrit explained.
In the passive form, the cases are detected through reports in health centres, hospital records and blood banks.

The health department and local governments determine the prevalence of the infection among sex workers or people with different preferences by visiting areas in some 10 cities in the country once a year to get blood samples.

The department's National AIDS/STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) Prevention and Control programme has spent P5.13 million ($ 102,600) in upgrading the skills of doctors and other health workers in detecting the disease.