Del Rosario fielded the statement amid the increasing number of recorded HIV and AIDS cases in the province.
Capiz now has 169 HIV and AIDS cases from 1986 to March 2018, a report presented during a recent HIV-AIDS provincial council meeting showed.
Roxas City has the highest number of these cases with 60, the report added.
Panay followed with 11; Dumalag and Pilar with 10 each; Panitan with nine; Dao, Sigma and Cuartero with seven each; Dumarao with six; Pontevedra, Mambusao and Ivisan with five each; Tapaz and President Roxas with four each; Jamindan with three; and Maayon and Sapian with two each.
The council said most of the HIV and AIDS patients were people aged 25 to 35 years old – most of them young professionals.
Capiz has also the first case of AIDS mother-to-child transmission in Western Visayas.
HIV targets the immune system, which in turn weakens people’s defense systems against infections and some types of cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
As it destroys and impairs the function of immune cells, infected individuals gradually become immunodeficient, the WHO added.
AIDS, on the other hand, is a term which applies to the most advanced stages of HIV infection. It is defined by the occurrence of any of more than 20 opportunistic infections or HIV-related cancers, according to WHO.
The HIV-AIDS provincial council said people must practice safe sex and must refrain from having multiple sex partners./PN
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