Cebu City Council Seeks Update from City’s HIV/Aids Council

The Cebu City Council has requested the multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS Council under the City Health Department (CHD) to submit the accomplishment report on the programs implemented to prevent the prevalence of the disease.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection leads to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)

The request was made after Cebu City City Councilor Mary Ann de los Santos presented on Wednesday the increase of HIV cases in the city.

De los Santos, chairman of the City Council’s committee on health, presented in her privilege speech that Central Visayas ranked third in the most number of HIV cases in the country, and that Cebu City is on top of the list in the region.

Since 1984 to 2015, she said the Philippine HIV/Aids Registry recorded 16,964 reported cases in the country.

Of the total number, 7,843 cases were from the National Capital Region followed by 2,065 cases from Region 4 and 1,1419 cases in Region 7 or Central Visayas.

Region 3 ranked fourth with 1,310 cases followed by Region 11 with 956 cases and other parts of the country with 2,233 cases.

De los Santos cited that 99 percent of the HIV cases in January 2015 were transmitted through sexual contact and one percent of which is due to needle-sharing among injecting drug users.

“It is now time to act. The most effective weapon we can have against this menace is education. It is not through giving of syringes to prevent needle-sharing among drug dependents,” she said.

The CHD’s HIV-AIDS Council has reportedly been implementing the “harm reduction program,” which allows the distribution of free syringes to identified drug users.

This has been opposed though by a number of groups, including the Cebu City Anti-Drug Abuse Council as it is, in a way, tolerating the use of illegal drugs. (PNA) FFC/EB/EBP