DOH Records 46 OFWs Inflicted with HIV in 2015
Overseas Filipino workers accounted for 46 cases afflicted with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2015 and all of them acquired the illness through sexual transmission, the Department of Health data showed.
For the entire 2015, the new cases of HIV soared as 7,829 in number. The figure includes 503 AIDS cases and 461 deaths.
Most of the new cases, 97.23 percent, were acquired through sexual transmission and 88 percent got the infection through men-having-sex-with-men.
Homosexual contact accounted for 349 cases, followed by bisexual contact with 206 cases and 77 cases from heterosexual contact.
Seventeen of the new cases were injecting drug users and one was mother-to-child transmission.
The DOH has recorded over 650 more people afflicted with HIV in December last year alone.
These new HIV cases in December were 28 percent higher compared to the 509 cases posted during the same period in 2014, the Philippine Star wrote Monday.
DOH said that out of the new cases, 27 have developed full-blown AIDS while 46 have died.
National Capital Region recorded the highest number of new cases with 250 followed by Calabarzon with 98 and Central Luzon with 54.
Since 1984, the DOH recorded a total of 30,356 HIV cases nationwide, including 2,552 with AIDS, and 1,530 deaths.