Baguio joins AIDS Candlelight Memorial

May 26, 2018 Community Billboard

BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio City Health Department and the Department of Health-Cordillera spearheaded the AIDS Candlelight Memorial commemoration together with the different advocacy partners from the government and private sectors in the city here on Thursday (May 24).
Dr. Celia Flor Brillantes, head of the Reproductive Health and Wellness Center of the City Health Services Offices, said that the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial is one of the world’s oldest and largest grassroots mobilization campaigns for HIV awareness.
Organized with the Ohana Cordillera, an HIV-AIDS support group and the Baguio AIDS Watch Council and the LGBT community in the city, the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial reminds people of the tremendous impact that HIV and the AIDS movement have had. The Memorial emphasizes the need for people living with and affected by HIV to join hands and reflect on the past and the precious lives that have been lost.
Aside from commemorating and remembering the departed individuals due to AIDS, the activity aims to raise awareness on HIV and AIDS particularly with the increasing number of HIV-AIDS affected people in the city of Baguio.
Brillantes said HIV-AIDS cases in the city of Baguio are now alarming. Since the city health department started to have a treatment hub, they have recorded at least 35 cases since July last year to May or an average of four patients a month.
Of the 32 recorded HIV cases last year, most were men having sex with men, and there was one pregnant woman.
Baguio City accounted for 301 HIV cases out of the 405 cases that were recorded by the agency from 1984 to January this year. Brillantes clarified that that most patients being diagnosed and treated at the CHSO are not from Baguio City.
Meanwhile, Dr. Alexi Marrero of the DOH-CAR said the activity also aims to raise HIV-AIDS awareness among the youth since the cases of HIV-AIDS affected individuals are getting younger and the mostly affected today are the youth.
Marrero stressed that there is a need to educate the youth and the next generation on HIV-AIDS prevention as he called on the various advocates to start teaching the younger generation on HIV-AIDS awareness.
“Let us teach the young to delay sex, teach them to avoid risky behaviour, teach them about safe sex and teach them how to protect themselves and be responsible,” said Marrero.
The young should also learn not to discriminate particularly those infected with the disease, he added stressing that people infected with HIV-AIDS are humans, too, and they should be respected as well. REDJIE MELVIC CAWIS, PIA CAR / ABN