INMATES in the country’s penal colonies as well as drug users in rehabilitation centers are now considered as among the most-at-risk population (MARPs) to the threat of human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS).
According to Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Paulyn Ubial, inmates and those in rehabilitation centers should be considered as being at-risk to HIV/AIDS owing to them being confined closely to one another.
“I will have to add to that list the people in the penal system or jails and probably the drug users, specifically those in the rehab centers,” said Ubial at the Philippine National Convention on AIDS in Quezon City.
This, she said, means they will also closely monitor the number of inmates and those in the rehab centers that are afflicted with HIV/AIDS.
“We don’t have any idea since it was not done before. We want to establish the baseline and trend from now on,” said the health chief.
Currently, considered as MARPs are men-having-sex-with-men (MSMs), commercial sex workers (CSWs), and injecting drug users (IDUs).
According to Ubial, there may already be a need for stakeholders to shift their focus to the MARPs, instead of the general population.
“What we should do is to actually focus our strategies on population groups that are most at risk and most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS since it is where the increases are being found,” said Ubial.
“That is the most important strategy we can adopt to address the epidemic,” she added.
In doing so, the Health chief said the resources of government would be used efficiently in both preventing more cases and treating those afflicted with the disease.
This means that MARPs would be readily provided HIV/AIDS testing kits, protective tool such as condoms, and antiretroviral (ARV) drugs as needed.
“We should focus on that [MARPs] because I believe we cannot spread ourselves too thinly by focusing on the general population,” said Ubial.
Based on the latest DOH figures, there are 766 newly-diagnosed Filipinos with HIV for the month of July 2016. (HDT/Sunnex)