DAVAO CITY—City health authorities are on war footing to address the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), whose rate of spread has placed this city in the top 5 critical-list areas.
Aside from aggressive education and information drive in schools, offices and public gathering, the city’s Reproductive Health and Wellness Center (RHWC) was also recently designated as the country’s pilot area to adapt the rHIVda, or the Rapid HIV Diagnostic Algorithm.
The performance of the RHWC in early detection may reconfigure the way the country’s regional and city health offices handle the detection and providing early treatment of HIV, which causes the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
“Early detection, especially for those with high-risk lifestyle, is encouraged,” RHWC head Dr. Jordana Ramiterre said in a statement released by the City Information Office.
The RHWC was chosen to become a pilot-testing site, “even as hospitals continued to use the western blot as confirmatory test for HIV”, the information office said.
Under the western-blot system, the sample would be processed at the STD (Sexually Transmitted Diseases)-AIDS Cooperative Center Laboratory (SACCL) in Manila. It usually takes more than three weeks for the results to be known.
But using rHIVda, the determination of the result is much faster, the information office said.
Davao City has recorded 524 people who have been diagnosed with HIV from January to June this year alone, in a continuing high incidence that landed the city in the top 5 areas in the country with the most number of reported cases from January 1984 to February 2016.
Of the number diagnosed during the first half of the year, nearly half (49 percent), or 259, undergo treatment at the RHWC.
The Department of Health in 2012 announced the HIV infection has spread into the general population after two decades of containment measures. Its rate of spread has become one of the fastest in Asia.
The campaign to contain the spread of HIV-AIDS was made one of the top health policies of the city administration of Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
“My administration has identified 10 priority areas to build Davao City around this vision. Included in the agenda is health,” the mayor said in her State of the City Address last week.
She noted the current various health programs already being established by the city government. She cited the center has a crucial role in handling cases of sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV and AIDS.
“The RHWC has been established as one of the treatment hubs in the country for People Living with HIV and AIDS,” she said.
The establishment of the RHWC has made the city host to two HIV-AIDS treatment facility. The other facility is the Southern Philippines Medical Center.
Aside from establishing the necessary facility for HIV concerns, the city also continuously conducts information and education campaign to somehow minimize the stigma attached to HIV, the information office said.
It cited the RHWC activity in March this year, #SaveSexy in Davao, an awareness campaign on HIV-AIDS.
The City Population Office was assigned to “closely coordinate with universities and high schools for the conduct of seminars and symposiums on STI and HIV-AIDS.”
Also aside from helping HIV patients, the RHWC has encouraged residents to be tested for HIV, “considering that treatment is available for those detected at an early stage.”