RP fight vs HIV/AIDS gets P4-million grant from UNAIDS

Efforts of the Philippines to combat cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) have received a much-needed boost from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

UNAIDS recently approved a grant of P4 million to help the government carry out its fourth AIDS medium-term plan, country coordinator Dr. Ma. Elena Borromeo said.

The plan was approved by the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC). The council is tasked to lead the country’s programs against HIV/AIDS.

Since January 1984, the Department of Health (DOH) has recorded some 2,250 cases of HIV infection, of which 680 cases have progressed into AIDS.

But the department believes that as many as 7,250 HIV cases remain unreported.

Borromeo said the grant supports two specific projects under the government’s AIDS plan.

The first involves the establishment of a National Monitoring and Evaluation System on HIV/AIDS.

The project will be implemented by the Women’s Health Care Foundation, a member of PNAC.

United Nations resident coordinator Deborah Landey said the government needed to have a system that would help it assess the success or failure of its AIDS programs.

She said such a monitoring and evaluation system would enable the Philippine government and foreign development agencies to allocate their limited resources to the country’s best advantage and to respond quickly to changes.

The second project seeks to place the foreign service at the forefront of AIDS prevention among Filipino migrant workers.

Borromeo said current practice focuses on informing departing workers on the dangers of contracting AIDS with little government intervention once the workers are abroad.

Dr. Jean Marc Olive, country representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), argued that any investment in AIDS prevention programs for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) is also an investment in the Philippine economy.

"We should be mindful of the fact that, first, 33 percent of the reported HIV and AIDS cases (in the Philippines) are OFWs. Second, OFW remittances — $8.3 billion in 2004 — significantly contribute to the Philippine economy’s positive growth rate, 6.1 percent as of 2004," he said.