By Paulo Loreto Lim

In a release published by Aangat Tayo party-list Rep. Neil Abayon III over the weekend, the congressman called attention to the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in the Philippines, saying, “The victims are getting younger and there are many young millennial men having sex with men who get infected.”
He cited statistics from the Department of Health (DOH), which found 1,020 new HIV/AIDS cases in the first four months of 2017 among those aged between 15 to 24.
“We need much better HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in the education sector, workplaces of the young, and at the barangay level,” he stated. “We must train teachers and human resource department personnel, as well as deploy more barangay health workers with special training on HIV/AIDS education and prevention.”
Abayon, who is a registered nurse, said the country’s youth needs better education on how to care for their sexual health.
“Equip them with engaging information modules which Filipino millennials will understand,” he suggested, adding, the said modules would then likely be shared on social media and in the news.
According to the DOH, the National Capital Region (NCR) reported the highest number of cases with 234, accounting for 37 percent of all recorded HIV/AID cases. Region 6, meanwhile, reported 25 cases, or four percent of all cases./WDJ