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Monday, July 3, 2017
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ILOILO City – This city was chosen as one of the pilot areas for an adolescent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) campaign of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Australasian Society for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM), and Burnet Institute.
This, after City Health Officer Dr. Bernardo Caspe participated in a seminar (“Innovative approaches and technologies to reduce adolescent HIV in China, Indonesia, and Philippines) in Melbourne, Australia from June 12 to 23.
“We were one of the two invited local government units (LGU) to attend the seminar and were selected as project sites,” said Caspe. The other is Zamboanga City.
Caspe said he learned three best practices of the government of Australia to prevent the spread of HIV infections – Community Rapid Testing Center, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, and Self-Testing.
How these practices could be replicated in the Philippines was discussed in the seminar.
City hall is currently doing community rapid testing through the Social Hygiene Clinic in Barangay Tanza, City Proper.
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis is a way for people to avoid HIV by taking a pill every day.
“The concern when taking Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis is that they still have to use condom, especially men having sex with men. They can avoid HIV by taking pre-exposure prophylaxis but not gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis if they don’t wear condom,” said Caspe. (Iloilo City PIO/PN)
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