1,092 new HIV/AIDS cases reported in May

MANILA, Philippines — More than 1,000 new HIV/AIDS cases, including three pregnant women, were recorded by the Department of Health (DOH) last May, a report showed yesterday.

Based on the May 2019 HIV/AIDS Registry of the Philippines prepared by the DOH Epidemiology Bureau, there were 1,092 new HIV cases reported in May. This is higher than the 950 new HIV cases recorded in May 2018.

Of this figure, 17 percent or 190 cases had clinical manifestations of either being advanced HIV infections or full-blown AIDS. There were 53 deaths in May.

The DOH said three of the newly diagnosed cases are pregnant women. Two of them came from Central Luzon while one was from the Bicol region.

Sexual contact remains the predominant mode of transmission with 1,059 (97 percent) cases, of which 902 (85 percent) are males who have sex with males.

The DOH noted that male-to-male sex accounted for 642 cases; followed by 260 from those having sex with both male and female and 157 from male-to-female sex.

Another mode of transmission were needle sharing among injecting drug users, which accounted for 14 cases.

Data shows there were six cases of mother-to-child transmission while another 13 cases had no data on the mode of transmission.

The DOH added the National Capital Region had the highest cases at 399; followed by Calabarzon with 170; Central Luzon with 124; Central Visayas with 82 and Western Visayas with 79.

Since 1984, there were 67,395 HIV cases recorded in the country, with 8,017 AIDS cases and 3,357 deaths.