Philippines faces HIV emergency, Thai experience can help   

News from the HIV frontline is encouraging. International monitoring agency UNAIDS reports that “the global rate of new HIV infections among adults and children has fallen by 33 per cent” between 2001 and 2013. The drop is attributed to improved access and quality of antiretroviral treatments: “Around 9.7 million people in low- and middle-income countries had access to these life-saving treatments by the end of 2012.” 
Concerning a particularly vulnerable group, the latest statistics from the agency show that “New HIV infections among children have declined by 50 per cent since 2010.” A November 2015 UNAIDS report also said the two million new HIV infections worldwide in 2014-15 were the lowest rise in 15 years.
Treatments have also improved tremendously since the first onslaught of the disease in the 1980s. An HIV prevention pill is now available in the United States and other countries, while the antiretroviral drug regimen that has been the standard treatment
for people living with HIV – allowing them to live generally unimpaired, healthy lives by delaying the onset of Aids by years, even decades – has been made simpler and more accessible. According to a new report in the medical journal Lancet, “Young people on the latest HIV drugs now have near-normal life expectancy because of improvements in treatments.”
But the key to living longer, healthier lives despite HIV should be clear, doctors said. It’s early treatment, preferably as soon as a person is diagnosed, which makes it imperative that people get themselves tested regularly, especially those from high-risk groups. A January report by the NGO Kaiser Family Foundation points out: “Most infections are transmitted heterosexually, although risk factors vary. In some countries, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, sex workers, transgender people, and prisoners are disproportionally affected by HIV.”
But while HIV infections are on the decline in many parts of the world, in Asia, two countries continue to post higher numbers: Afghanistan and the Philippines. March was a new record month, according to the Philippine Department of Health, with 968 new cases – the highest figure recorded in a month since 1984, and 32 per cent higher than the 735 cases recorded in the same period in 2016.
A further worry is that HIV in the Philippines has become “youth epidemic”, notes the National Youth Commission, citing statistics showing 62 per cent of new HIV cases last year were among young people aged 15 to 24. Ignorance appears to be the main driver. the government admits that only 17 per cent of youth aged 15-24 understand what HIV is and how it spreads.
If other countries are having greater success in the fight against HIV, what is the Philippines missing out on? Where are the aggressive awareness and prevention campaigns that should make noise at this point to correct the situation and arrest the further spread of the epidemic?
Thailand, for one, has been a success story in battling HIV through thorough information drives and condom distribution. Unfortunately, the Filipino Department of Education just recently caved in to conservative groups and dropped a plan to distribute condoms to senior high school students and talk to them, as well as their parents and teachers, about sexual health.
The country is in the midst of a public-health emergency. It is clear that less rigid thinking and more radical intervention is urgently needed.