Returning migrant workers who engaged in high-risk sexual behavior in the past have been urged to get themselves voluntarily tested, an official said Sunday
A total of 451 migrant workers were newly diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus from January to June this year, up 14.4 percent from the 394 listed in the same six-month period in 2017, Rep. Aniceto Bertiz III said Sunday.
“All told, [migrant Filipino workers] with HIV now account for 10 percent of all the cases in the National HIV and AIDS Registry,” Bertiz said.
Of the 56,275 cases listed in the registry from January 1984 to June 2018, 5,889 were migrant workers, Bertiz said.
“We urge the migrant workers who engaged in high-risk sexual behavior in the past to get themselves voluntarily tested for HIV,” he said.
Early detection and anti-retroviral treatment or ART have been known to slow down the advance of HIV, which causes AIDS, according to the Health department.
AIDS destroys the human body’s natural ability to fight off all kinds of infections, and the condition still does not have any known cure.
“The [Health department] has 60 HIV treatment hubs across the country plus 33 primary care facilities that provide outpatient care services to returning
Filipino workers and other citizens living with the virus,” Bertiz said.
A total of 28,045 Filipinos living with HIV were on record as undergoing ART as of June, the Health department said.
Of the 5,889 migrant workers in the National HIV and AIDS Registry, Bertiz said, 5,063 or 86 percent were male with the median age of 32 years.
The majority of the male cases, or 71 percent, were infected through sexual contact among MSM, or men who had sex with men (2,062 from male-to-male sex and 1,529 from sex with both males and females).
The median age of the female workers in the registry was 34 years.
Bertiz urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to devote more resources toward HIV/AIDS prevention and education among migrant Filipinos and their families.