The larger system of discourse on AIDS shows that the term, those affected by the disease, and our view of ourselves and our bodies has changed since the discovery of the first cases. In the beginning, AIDS was basically defined as a "gay cancer" that homosexual males were contracting in San Francisco and other heavily gay populated metropolitan areas (New York). As more and more information became available concerning the disease it was discovered that it was not germane to homosexuals and that it was a virus, not a cancer, transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, primarily semen and blood. Widespread panic, fear and misunderstanding were characteristic of the discourse surrounding the disease. Those affected by it, primarily homosexuals males during the first few years of its existence, were vilified by the religious right, scared heterosexuals and even those within the medical profession many of whom were in fear of direct contact with AIDS patients. Homosexuals did not help their own fight for identity and integrity by attacking politicians, the medical community and pharmaceutical companies using the epidemic as a weapon against homosexuality to stir up public fears against homosexuals, enact legislation that deprived homosexuals of their civil rights and even profit from their illness and certain death.
BY THE RENOWNED SOURCE:
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is struggling to deal with a worsening human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) problem, with far too little money being spent on reversing a steady rise in infection rates, health experts warn.
The government will have to prioritize its funding to concentrate on helping the most at-risk communities as it faces a budget shortfall of up to $370 million over the next five years, Department of Health (DoH) Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag said.
"If we only have so much, we have to prioritize the scope of our programs, choosing the target populations, choosing the specific areas," Tayag told Agence France Presse (AFP).
"It is a race against time because the more cases there are, the more different kinds of financial support are needed in the long run,” he said.
The number of HIV/AIDS cases detected in the Philippines -- which has a population of 94 million people -- is still relatively small, with only 7,884 cases recorded since 1984.
But the Philippines is one of only seven countries listed by UNAIDS (the joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS) to have suffered rising infection rates in 2010.
And more than 1,800 cases have already been reported in the first 10 months of this year, exceeding the 1,591 cases reported for all of 2010, according to government data.
Tayag said the government estimated it needed P35 billion ($810 million) to carry out HIV-prevention programs from 2011 to 2016.
However the health department had only identified foreign and local sources for P19 billion ($440 million), leaving a projected shortfall of P16 billion ($370 million).
The funding crunch is expected to hit hardest when the current "round" of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria runs out in November next year, said Maria Teresa Bagasao, country director of UNAIDS.
Another "round" of aid pledges was originally scheduled for next year but has been put back to 2013 and any grant money will not be released until 2014 at the earliest, Bagasao told AFP.
"The country needs to look at whether there is going to be a critical gap in the funding. It has to actually sit down and identify where the gap will be. In prevention or treatment?" she said.
The Global Fund, a UN-supported partnership of governments and private aid groups, had made up the bulk of the foreign aid that paid for as much as 80 percent of the country's HIV prevention and treatment programs, Bagasao said.
Activists have accused the government of cutting its own funding for HIV programs and relying too much on external sources.
"There was a gradual decrease (in local funding) because of an over-reliance on external financing like the Global Fund," said Jonas Bagas, spokesman for the Network to Stop AIDS in the Philippines, a coalition of health and activist groups.
Amid the budget concerns, Tayag said the Philippines may have to focus its spending mainly on the homosexual and injecting drug user communities, because they were the groups in which infection rates were rising significantly.
"There are two populations that are the drivers of the epidemic: men having sex with men and injecting drug users," said Tayag, who oversees government programs to fight infectious diseases.
At least 46 percent of infections recorded this year were from homosexual contact, compared with 25 percent in 2006, according to the government data.
Officials say they were caught off-guard by the rise in infections from homosexual contact when they had been mainly concentrating on female sex workers.
Injecting drug users were still a small proportion of the total but there had been a sharp rise from only eight cases detected in 2009 to 147 last year, and another 80 in the first 10 months of 2011.
Previously, HIV had been mainly spread through heterosexual contact. This had been curbed with many HIV-prevention programs focusing on educating and testing female sex workers, according to Tayag. (AFP)
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