By: Hazel Gloria
CEBU CITY, November 23 (PIA) --- The Department of Public Works and Highways all over Central Visayas (DPWH-7) in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development are now providing employment opportunities for unskilled laborers under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
District engineers of Cebu Province convened recently to discuss strategies on the hiring of 4Ps beneficiaries as labor workers in roads, highways and bridges development and maintenance.
DSWD-7 Pantawid Pamilya program regional coordinator, Aileen Lariba explained that the national government mandates that 20% of the labor work force of DPWH be given to Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries.
This has encouraged district engineers to come together and strategize on how to accommodate as many beneficiaries as possible before the year ends and to prepare a ready pool for a busy 2012, Lariba added.
In the three years of program implementation, the Pantawid beneficiaries were given continuous Family Development Sessions (FDS); capability trainings and other various strategies such as consultation workshops and caravans.
"These strategies are to equipped and empower them with knowledge and values that they would be ready and open in their co-responsibilities as parents through their compliance of the program’s set conditions," Lariba said.
Because of these preparations, Lariba said, these beneficiaries are now ready with the opportunity of sustainable livelihood and employment, making them an asset in whatever project they would be assigned to.
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is a five years poverty alleviation strategy of the government that the DSWD implements through the provision of conditional cash to extremely poor household with children 0-14 years old for health and education.
Each household will have a monthly allocation of P500/month for health and P300/month/child for education for a maximum of three children only.
To continually receive the grants and for the program to meet its objective, each household is to comply with the following set conditions namely pre-natal and post-natal care for pregnant women, immunization, weighing, preventive health check-up and attendance to family development sessions is a must. As to education children must have at least 85% attendance in school.
The above conditions are the beneficiaries' co-responsibilities in the program implementation as well as tools in guiding them towards the right path in crossing poverty.
The cash received is still a big part in meeting their needs but they now realize it is not the end of it but rather an important tool in making a big and better picture.
They are now ready for JOBS to help them start generating their own cash in preparation for the program's completion five years after its implementation. (PIA-7/hfg & DSWD-7/al)
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4-6 HIV+ persons seek help from VSMMC in Cebu City per month
By Fayette C. Riñen
CEBU CITY, November 23 (PIA) – About four to six persons that are positive with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seek counseling and medical treatment a month at the government-manned Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City which is under the Department of Health (DOH).
Dr. Chamberlain Agtuca Jr., assistant leader of the VSMMC’s HIV/Aids Core Team said most of the individuals who avail of their Voluntary Counseling and Therapy (VCT) Program come from Cebu City, where a rapid rise of new HIV cases is seen. From January to September, this year, the Cebu City Health Department has recorded 100 new positive HIV cases where 82 percent are injecting drug users.
Though the rapid surge of HIV cases in Cebu City is due to injecting drug users, Agtuca said their record showed that 80 percent of their clients contracted the virus through sexual contact particularly men-having-sex-with-men and only 10 percent got the disease from injectable drugs.
Agtuca said that because of government’s antiretroviral therapy under their VCT Program, more and more people that have contracted the dreaded virus that causes Aids (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) are seeking consultation and treatment at the hospital, which has been designated as a treatment hub for HIV/Aids in the Visayas and Mindanao. Another similar government facility is also found in Bohol, Agtuca said.
As a treatment hub for HIV/Aids, the VSMMC started its operations on the VCT program for over 10 years already and that only this year, has the number of patients positive with the HIV has risen, according to Agtuca.
“For the past two years, there were only one to two patients positive with the virus that seek their help but since the beginning of the year, the average number of patients has grown to four up to six,” Agtuca declared.
“We now have 82 patients that are availing of the antiretroviral therapy which provides free drugs to patients for a lifetime,” Agtuca said.
The 82 number is just those that are eligible for the free antiretroviral drugs but the number of HIV+ patients that go to VSMMC are three to four times higher, the government doctor added.
“Not all HIV+ persons can avail of the drugs. Certain guidelines need to be followed while those that already exhibit symptoms are given priority,” Agtuca said.
The antiretroviral therapy is a combination of three drugs where the objective is for a patient taking lifetime first-line drugs not to progress to second-line drugs or worse, the third-line drugs, this is said.
Agtuca said the drugs are given for free by the Global Fund to the Philippine Government in the campaign against HIV/Aids. “The price of the first-line drugs in the commercial market good for one month is pegged at P9, 000. The second and third-line drugs are even more expensive and one has to take these medicines for a lifetime,” Agtuca bared.
“IN other Asian countries, there have been reports of high viral resistance due to the antiretroviral therapy,” Agtuca disclosed adding that this is a good sign since people living with HIV can live longer.
Although the Global Fund will end its assistance in giving free antiretroviral drugs to the Philippines by 2012, Agtuca said they are not worried because the DOH has already committed in allocating a budget for the provision of the antiretroviral therapy. (PIA-Cebu)
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Free access to drugs, counseling cause the
rapid rise of HIV/Aids cases in Cebu City
by Fayette C. Riñen
CEBU CITY, November 23 (PIA) -- Government interventions such as accessibility to antiretroviral drugs and the voluntary counseling and therapy (VCT) program are two significant factors behind the increasing number of HIV/AidS cases in Cebu City. As of September, this year, the Cebu City Health Department (CCHD) has recorded 100 new positive HIV cases.
Dr. Ilya Tac-an, city epidemiologist and head of the HIV/AidS Detection Unit admitted though that the figure may be alarming but that they are now collaborating with the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) on measures to address the issue as 82 percent of the victims are injecting drug users (IDUs).
“Since last year, we have seen a rapid rise of HIV/AIDS cases in Cebu City. In 2010, there were 182 new positive HIV cases and from January to September, this year, another 100 new cases were recorded. In almost two years’ time, 282 new HIV cases have been reported in the city alone and the major cause is drug use through injection,” Tac-an bared.
“The prevalence rate of IDUs causing the surge of HIV cases is at 53 percent,” according to Tac-an.
A total of 377 HIV/Aids cases in Cebu City alone have been recorded from 1989 up to present, Tac-an added.
Tac-an said that from 1989 to 2009, there were only 95 HIV/Aids cases and less than one percent is due to injectable drug.
Currently, the DOH-7 HIV/Aids Registry recorded 488 cases in Central Visayas with almost 80 percent found in Cebu City with the 377 cases.
Ted Teleron, DOH-7 nurse coordinator on the HIV/Aids Prevention and Control Program said “our goal is not to add more new cases as we urge those high-risk groups to avail of the government’s VCT program so that they could seek treatment as well as be educated on how to prevent spreading the virus.”
The VCT program is being offered by the CCHD and the government-manned Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) under the DOH, this is said.
The VSMMC likewise is designated as the HIV/Aids treatment hub where people living with HIV who exhibit symptoms are eligible for the free antiretroviral therapy. The free drugs are given for a lifetime which could lengthen the life of a person living with HIV.
Johnson Lo of Cebu Plus on the other hand, claimed that accessibility to drugs and the VCT program are two factors that have encouraged people with HIV to come out in the open. Cebu Plus is a NGO composed mostly of HIV positive members who are bent on fighting HIV/Aids through advocacy and education.
The national HIV/Aids registry of the DOH has recorded 7,684 HIV/Aids cases nationwide where 6,246 are males and 1,427 are females. (PIA-Cebu)