TACLOBAN CITY—The Commission on Population or Popcom celebrated Valentine’s Day with its “Heart to H.E.A.R.T” campaign, to create awareness on the increasing number of HIV and AIDS victims and teenage pregnancy in the country.
The campaign’s acronym discusses the issues of adolescents and teens such as HIV/AIDS, early sexual encounters, adolescent sexuality, reproductive health and teenage pregnancy.
The Department of Health reported last December, through the HIV and AIDS Registry of the Philippines, that 750 new HIV antibody sero-positive individuals were reported, with 96 percent of the cases male. More than half belong to the 25-to-34 age group, while 29 percent were youth aged 15 to 24 years.
In 2016, the DoH recorded 9,264 cases of HIV/AIDS, including 1,969 deaths.
In Eastern Visayas, one critical emerging issue is the increasing birth among adolescents. Based on Philippine Statistics Authority data, teenage mothers are getting younger, and young mothers are increasing. That’s from 8,425 number of births by teenage pregnancy in 2011 to 9,155 in 2014.
YAFS4 revealed that 9.7 percent of females aged 15 to 19 are already mothers; 2.1 percent of females aged 15 to 19 were pregnant with their first child at the time of the survey interview; and 11.8 percent of females aged 15 to 19 have begun childbearing.
The study also revealed that the proportion of women who have begun childbearing increase with age from 2.0 percent those aged 16 to 31.8 percent among those aged 19.
Last Feb. 3, a study of the National Institute of Health at the University of the Philippines-Manila revealed that the more aggressive Thai strain of HIV was seen among infected Filipinos, and could be one of the reasons for the continuous rise in new infections, Popcom said.
The most recent Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study 4 Further Studies showed that in 2013, 13.7 percent of females 15 to 19 years old have begun childbearing. This is more than double the increase from 2002 (6.2 percent).
Also, according to YAFS 4 Further Studies, the average age of Filipinos’ first sexual encounter in the country is 17 years old, for both male and female. Most of these encounters happened at home when parents are away, and some of the YAFS 4 papers cite the strong influence of the Internet in early sex among youth.