MANILA - AIDS infections have picked up significantly in the Philippines, with new case reports at least twice the rate of the 1990s, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit warned Thursday.
Since 2000, an average of 20 people have been infected every month with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, up from about 10 cases a month in the 1990s, Dayrit told a news conference.
The country's classification as a "low and slow" HIV infection area no longer applied. "What we have now is 'hidden and growing'," he said.
The Philippines is the world's 12th most populous state, with more than 84 million people. Some 10 percent of the population are abroad on temporary job contracts.
For the three months to March, the health department documented 2,250 HIV infections, about 30 percent of which are full-blown AIDS cases, Dayrit said.
Sixty-nine percent of newly-infected people are aged between 20 and 39. Some 63 percent are males, and sex remained the main mode of transmission.
Of the total, 33 percent had worked abroad.
"Anybody can be infected if they have sex with somebody infected with the virus," Dayrit said, urging Filipinos to use condoms and avoid casual sex.
Dayrit said the health department would buy 20 million pesos (about 369,000 dollars) worth of anti-retroviral drugs to subsidize the medical costs for HIV-positive people in the Philippines.
"We allocated 20 million pesos for the purchase of the (drugs), and we will be importing through the UNICEF," Dayrit said, referring to the United Nations children fund.
The United Nations agency for AIDS prevention is also giving the Philippines 1.3 million dollars' worth of government support for the programme, he said.
05/12/2005 09:38 GMT