Techie
9:51 PM | Friday | 12 March 2010

You can somehow blame the increase of HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines on social-networking sites. At least according to Dr. Eric Tayag, director of the Department of Health's National Epidemiology Center.

At today's Kapihan sa Manila forum, Tayag said that the boom of social-networking sites in the last three years and the rise of HIV/AIDS cases in the same period were connected and not a mere coincidence.

Ferchito Avelino of the Philippine National AIDS Council secretariat agreed, explaining that the Internet has made it easier for young people to find sexual partners, hence the rise of new HIV/AIDS cases. This even without any study regarding the connection between the two.

Avelino added that if you couple that with other factors like the lack of access to information about sex and the absence of social support system, you now have all the ingredients for a situation that's even worse than what we have now.

December last year saw the most number of new AIDS cases – 126 to be exact – in the past 25 years. It was also revealed that a total of 835 cases of HIV/AIDS have been recorded in 2009, the highest within a single year in the Philippines since the first one was reported in 1984.

Kids, link or no link, just be safe, okay?

Via Inquirer.net