HETEROSEXUAL AIDS

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit is wrong to downplay the increase in
HIV infections. He was quoted as saying that the rate of infection in
the Philippines is less than one percent compared to 30 to 40 percent
in other Asian countries.

He should be concerned because HIV/AIDS spreads rapidly. Since 1981,
when it was first recognized, it has infected close to 30 million
persons all over the world. In 10 years, India and Thailand surpassed
the US in the number of people with HIV. In Africa, AIDS is the new
plague.

The other reason Secretary Dayrit must be concerned is new infections
were found among overseas workers, especially seamen. This is
consistent with the finding in Africa that HIV was contracted in
worksites and transmitted to their wives by returning workers.

The rate of increase, according to the Department of Health, is 30
percent. Between January 1989 and July 2002, 1,733 cases were
discovered mainly among men - 73 percent - aged 20 to 68.

From interviews, the DOH found that they contracted the virus through
sexual intercourse with prostitutes. Most of the respondents were seamen.

The AIDS epidemic spread in three stages. First among homosexual men,
then to intravenous drug users, and now among heterosexual men and
women.

Neither the Department of Labor and Employment nor the DOH collect
information on sexual preferences and drug addiction. We hazard the
guess that most of our migrant workers are heterosexual and are not
addicted to heroin or crack. However, as regards the latter, the DOH
reports that "needle or syringe-related causes of infection have
dramatically climbed to 82 percent this year compared to 50 percent in
2000."

It is reasonable to assume that most of the infections of Filipino
migrant workers were due to unprotected sex with prostitutes.

Heterosexual transmission is still a controversial issue in the debate
on HIV/AIDS. In 1990, a book called The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS
argued that there was little risk of HIV infection among heterosexual
sex partners.

But each year the number of cases of heterosexually transmitted AIDS
has increased faster than the epidemic as a whole, especially among
the poor.

Dr. Jerome Groopman, formerly the head of the AIDS program at
Harvard's New England Deaconess Hospital, said: "The heterosexual
epidemic is no myth. It is real."

As early as 1988 and 1989, the US Center for Disease Control reported
heterosexual transmission of HIV rose by 36 percent. Furthermore,
heterosexual women who contracted HIV passed on the virus to their
babies.

Dr. Dayrit's complacency is troubling. He admits that the DOH has
two surveillance tracks. One is an annual check on HIV rates. The
other, called passive, checks infection rates every three to
five years. OFWs are in the second track.

Equally troubling is that seamen were randomly selected for blood
samples. This means that a great many of them reentered the country
undetected and might have transmitted the virus to their wives,
girlfriends and sex partners.

What is needed is mandatory and total screening of all returning OFWs.
Those leaving for overseas jobs must get a thorough education on HIV
transmission and how to protect against it.

These draconian measures are necessary while the problem is still
somewhat manageable.

Dr. Dayrit should be castigated for being so off-hand about a
calamitous disease for which there's still no effective cure.