Facts

I read these facts from 4 articles yesterday as the country celebrated the World AIDS Day:

1. Nine out of every 10 cases were infected on account of high-risk sexual contact

2. Senator Miriam Santiago has filed a measure seeking to replace the law to control and prevent the spread of the disease known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrom

3. Philippine Health Insurance Corp. vowed to provide strong protection and full support to members who acquire the highly infectious human immunodeficiency virus


4. More and more Filipinos have become afflicted with HIV/AIDS: 253 new cases in Sept. 2011 alone. This is 65 percent higher than the number of new cases in Sept. 2010.

4. According to the DOH, the number of cases has risen by 40% from 2010, with 6 to 8 people diagnosed with HIV every day.

5. OFWs accounted for 23 percent, or 1,729, out of the 7,684 total cases in the National HIV and AIDS Registry as of Sept. 30


6. 15 Filipinos so far have died this year due to HIV/AIDS.

7.  Quezon City reported the most number of HIV cases with 1,669 people tested positive this year.

8. The Philippines is one of only seven countries in the world struggling with rapidly increasing new HIV infections, despite the global downtrend

9. This year, Quezon City has budgeted more than P3 million for its anti-HIV efforts.


10. All in all, since 1984, there have been 339 HIV/AIDS-related deaths, and a total of 7,684 Filipinos reported to have HIV/AIDS.

11. From January to September this year, a total of 1,669 new HIV infections were passively discovered in the country, up 40 percent versus the 1,201 cases detected over the same nine-month period in 2010

12. The DOH warns if the public fails to heed warnings about the disease, the country could be looking at more than 40,000 HIV cases by 2015.

13. At the rate new cases are being spotted, government could be spending P1 billion yearly by 2015, just to procure the antiretroviral drugs needed to treat Filipinos with HIV