Unesco raises alarm on growing HIV threat to Pinoy youth

MANILA, Philippines - A research group yesterday said that the youth sector, apart from sex workers and migrant workers, is also considered as “high risk” to the infection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

The study “Philippine Education Sectors’ Response to HIV, Drugs and Sexuality” showed that the HIV cases in the country continued to climb, primarily affecting the young population or those belonging to the age group of 15 to 29.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) National Commission of the Philippines commissioned the study that was conducted by a five-member research team led by Dr. Evalina Vicencio, University of the East-College of Education dean.

UNESCO HIV-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and School Health consultant Ahmed Afzal said that 40 percent of the new infections in the world are classified as youth or below 29 years old.

He said that if a person was detected with HIV when he or she is already 29 years old, it is possible that the infection started when they were 15 to 20 years old. At this age, they are at the most vulnerable and engage in youth experimentation. They might also succumb to peer pressure, easily influenced by the media and drift from their families.

Afzal believed that even at this age, the youth should already have comprehensive information on how to prevent the disease and to erase misconceptions.

Vicencio, on the other hand, believed that the education sector has a crucial role in order to address this dilemma.

She urged the continued manufacturing and dissemination of initiative development materials.

“There should be more effort to publish the book, go online so it would be accessible to anybody and telling others that there is such a thing. President Aquino, who still has five years left in Malacañang, should support the Department of Education (DepEd) curriculum program. Right now, there is limited content on the HIV and AIDS (in the curriculum),” she said, adding that the curriculum should be included in other subjects and not only in the Health subject.

In basic education, information on HIV and AIDS is also presented in health textbooks under communicable diseases and disease control, but the information is very limited. Substance use and abuse are also hardly discussed at the elementary level.

Further initiatives by the DepEd, which included the development and pilot-testing of instructional materials on adolescent reproductive health in 2005, were halted as the media, the religious sector, and conservative parents and stakeholders protested against its integration in the basic education curriculum.

At the tertiary level, HIV and AIDS education is integrated in the specific courses identified by the Commission on Higher Education, but due to lack of training on HIV preventive education, faculty members have been teaching the subject using only their own resources and literature available to them.

The study mentioned that HIV prevalence in the country is still low at 0.1 percent of the total population, but has been growing at an alarming rate.

From years 2007 to 2010, the number of annual reported HIV cases in the country more than quadrupled.

The report also mentioned that the education sector lacked the government support and funding to fully implement the education programs and to institutionalize HIV and AIDS education in the country.

It showed that the “implementation of the mandates at the national and local levels is poor and there are no focal persons for the national AIDS response program in the different sectors.”

Few local government units have local policies and programs on AIDS and some government agencies have been wavering in their commitment to execute directives mandated by law.

It also said that the frequent change in leadership, especially at the provincial, district, municipality and city levels, result to non-continuation of, or a shift, in commitments to policies and programs.