PHO: HIV Training for Teachers to Start in May

The Cebu Provincial Health Office (PHO) said yesterday that district superintendents and teachers in secondary schools will undergo training prior to the formal launching of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Basic Education program which will be given to Grade 8 students through a formal subject.

PHO’s HIV detection program coordinator Jun Salgado said that these steps are part of the program’s over-all target which is to detect more HIV cases and link them to care and antiretroviral treatment.

Salgado said PHO’s HIV campaign will officially take-off in the third quarter of 2017. The training, which will be given first to educators in the last week of May, will be incorporated in the MAPEH subject.

“We have to be very careful especially the youth. They are very prone to contact this disease due to their very active lifestyle. They might not know the background of which they are getting contact with,” Salgado said.

HIV transmission occurs when blood and sexual fluids of a person living with HIV enters someone else’s bloodstream, and not through sweat, saliva or urine. The most common form of transmission is through unprotected sexual intercourse.

In January 2017 alone, authorities said there were 62 cases of HIV/AIDS reported in Region 7; 58 of these cases are in Cebu. Most of turn-out came from males ranging from ages 15-34.

HIV attacks the body’s immune system and then causes AIDS. However, through advance technology and the existence of antiretroviral treatment, most of the HIV cases do not develop into AIDS.

The HIV Basic Education program is among the streamline of HIV campaigns of the Cebu Provincial Government along with the Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Education, Cebu Provincial Anti-drug Abuse Office, and the non-profit organization Cebu Plus.

Moreover, Capitol will take part in this year’s International AIDS Candlelight Memorial on May 20 on the Capitol grounds. This is one of the world’s first mobilizations for HIV awareness whose aim is to break social stigma and discrimination.