Survey on HIV-AIDS epidemic launched

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) launched yesterday a survey to determine the extent of the trend of “men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM),” which is changing the landscape of the HIV-AIDS epidemic in the country.

Dr. Eric Tayag, director of the DOH’s National Epidemiology Center, said they observed an increase of MSM among people infected with HIV so they decided to initiate the three-month survey that ends in November.

“MSM is becoming a sexual norm. This is contributing to the increase of HIV/AIDS and this is not merely about gays. This is about men who have sex with men,” he said in a health forum organized by the Philippine College of Physicians.

Commercial sex was the leading mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS in the country several decades ago, but it was slowly overtaken by MSM in the past years.

The DOH’s Philippines HIV/AIDS Registry showed that from January 1984 to July 2009, there were 4,021 HIV cases in the Philippines, 817 of whom have progressed into AIDS.

Health officials said 3,609 of the 4,021 cases were infected through sexual contact. From 2007, a total of 477 cases or 38 percent of sexual transmission was homosexual while 423 or 34 percent were heterosexual and 341 or 28 percent were bisexual.

The DOH had registered 432 HIV/AIDS cases from January to July 2009. Seventy of the cases were recorded in July with “bisexual contact as the most predominant type of sexual transmission.”

Tayag said that MSM used to be “hidden” and was known to circulate in clandestine places like rundown movie houses.