UN agency to review RP surveillance system vs HIV, AIDS

The Joint United Nations Program on Human Immuno Deficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) will review the Philippines’ surveillance system and policy data on the disease to validate the "slow and low" transmission of the virus in the country.

Dr. Zahidul Huque, head of the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS, said they could not understand how HIV prevalence remains low in the Philippines "when the ingredients for an epidemic explosion are present in the country."

Such "ingredients" include the presence of commercial sex workers and injection drug users.

"The HIV/AIDS situation in the Philippines is commonly described as ‘low prevalence.’ Recently, it has also been described as a ‘paradox’ and a ‘puzzle,’" Huque said.

From January 1984 when HIV/AIDS cases were first recorded in the Philippines to April this year, the Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS Registry had recorded a total of 1,866 HIV carriers, 590 of whom had become full-blown AIDS cases.

Huque warned that such a situation might not last long so there is a need for the Philippines not to let its guard down against HIV/AIDS.

"All countries, including those severely affected now, have at some point in their epidemic histories been ‘low prevalence’ countries. For example, South Africa has one of the worst HIV epidemics in the world, yet was considered ‘low prevalence’ just 10 years ago when epidemics in other African countries were well underway," he said.

"These increases have been brought about by low or declining prioritization of HIV/AIDS, diminishing resources for HIV/AIDS programs, denial or complacency that results in unsafe sexual practices, declines in regular HIV testing, and possibly from misunderstanding about treatments and vaccines under development as being cures," he said.

He added that the current HIV prevalence helps in planning prevention and control programs efficiently "but it is now predictive of the future of the epidemic."

"The Philippines may be lucky to have a number of factors that have kept the HIV prevalence low to date. But luck is not the way to control the epidemic," he said.

This year, UNAIDS will review the current behavioral, epidemiological and policy data on HIV/AIDS in the Philippines by tapping local and international experts.

"With improved quality of data on the HIV/AIDS situation in the country, we anticipate that the paradoxical issue of the low HIV prevalence rate of the Philippines will be better understood… HIV/AIDS is still an emerging epidemic, globally and locally," Huque said.

Dr. Consorcia Quizon, the DOH’s chief epidemiologist, said that such "slow and low" spread of HIV/AIDS in the country might be attributed to the "low turnover of sex partners and the high circumcision rate among Filipino males."

"Maybe, the Filipino males are not as macho as they think they are because they have less sex partners. Maybe, it is more of serial monogamy rather than having six partners all at the same time. It’s a myth," she said.

Quizon surmised that when a man is circumcised, there is a less chance for him to transmit sexually related diseases.

"Maybe, we have not had the critical mass of infected people from whom other people will be sex-infected. The truth is that we are slow and low now but that’s only a snapshot. We cannot say that it will be the same situation next year or in the next five years. We should seize the window of opportunity to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS now while we still can," she said.