Each family’s dining table should be the first venue of discussion about HIV/AIDS and the risqué sexual behavior that may cause it.

That’s the projected figure of Filipinos with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in the year 2025. If that is not troubling enough, majority of these numbers are young people.

Drastic moves are being demanded of us, not only from the government and our learning institutions, but from all of us in curbing these numbers.

The victims are getting younger, according to the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and government health agencies are now flashing the SOS as the Philippines is now a red-flagged country in the rising HIV cases just as the battle against it is being won in other places.

Louie Ocampo, UNAIDS country director, opined that we need to “do some out-of-the-box interventions” if we are to beat this disease that may lead to full-blown AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Before it is too late.

“The Philippines has been projected to have 201,000 HIV cases by 2025, up from 56,000 cases in 2016 and 142,000 cases in 2022,” Ocampo said. These are alarming numbers that we cannot overlook.

Department of Health Undersecretary Dr. Rolando Enrique Domingo reported that from 32 reported cases of HIV each day last year, it has now jumped to 35 new cases daily this year.

These are the reported cases. There are still unreported cases which also need to be addressed.

Domingo reiterated Ocampo’s observation of these cases as “alarming.” He also confirmed that most of the victims fall into the youth — actually very young — category.

Ocampo disclosed that two of three new infections belong to the 15 to 24 age bracket.

These are mainly due to young boys who have found their sexuality at a very young age. According to Ocampo, some of them have engaged in risky behavior and fall into the category of males-who-have-sex-with-males (MSM).

Ocampo related that these victims start having sex at 15 years old. They only learn to use the condom at age 18. The three-year gap of unprotected sex makes them vulnerable.

“There is a gap of three years for protective behavior,” he said, and these numbers will account for some 19,300 new cases by 2022.

The National Capital Region accounts for 42 percent of the cases, 18 percent are from Western and Central Visayas and the Davao region, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) nets 14 percent, while Central Luzon contributes nine percent.

The 2018 UNAIDS report cited the Philippines as a “country with the fastest growing epidemic in the world,” a contrary trend to the global target of enabling 90 percent of people living with HIV to be aware of their status.

This percentage would allow them to avail themselves of the anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to suppress their viral load as the world is hot on the chase of a drug that would kill the virus and treat AIDS altogether.

Ocampo said “zero stigma and discrimination” by Filipinos of persons afflicted with HIV/AIDS is needed to raise the populace’s awareness about the disease. This, he said, would help stem the rising cases and hopefully correct, if not stop, the unwelcome trend of its continuing spread in the country.

Each family’s dining table should be the first venue of discussion about HIV/AIDS and the risqué sexual behavior that may cause it, although Domingo said government is keeping tabs with the Department of Education to go on overdrive in its sexual and reproductive health programs. Non-government organizations are also being asked to help.

Or else, we’ll see the numbers grow from what we have today.

HIV infections, Ocampo said, jumped by 203 percent from 2010 to 2018, with only 77 percent of infected individuals being aware about their status.

Those getting ART, however, are only at 57 percent and a measly eight percent is being tested for viral load.

Ocampo blames the lack of knowledge among the youth, especially those who engage in MSM, on how HIV is transmitted and prevented.

The use of condom is the best available means of prevention to HIV/AIDS.

Condoms are distributed for free in health centers. They come cheaply in convenience stores.

Ignorance, however, is killing our children. And it is not just the families, schools and advocates who should discuss the issues about sex and sexuality, the risks brought by unprotected sex (and drug use, of course), but also the companies that produce condoms, which should be treated in the manner we do with cigarettes.

Our lawmakers can also step in and craft laws that will make condom manufacturers include the risks of unprotected sex in product packaging.

Condoms are not only meant as a deterrent to pregnancy. Times have changed and their functions have increased to become a protection against HIV/AIDS, too.

Some ink and paper would spell the difference in numbers. And we do not need to wait until 2025 to prove it.

If we really want to make headway with strengthening our nation, we should focus on one huge, glaring problem — and I don’t mean Bea-Gerald-Julia or the Barretto sisters x Atong Ang, who could well be today’s hunk of epic proportions.

No, it is not the showbiz wars we should be worrying about, nor the pale moon that should excite and thrill us — it is the alarming number of HIV cases in the Philippines!

Recent reports reveal that ours has been ranked as the country with the fastest growing number of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cases in the world.

This was disclosed by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) recently.

Dr. Louie Ocampo, UNAIDS Philippines country director, stated in a Manila Doctors forum, “We are the country with the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the world, not only in Asia and the Pacific. In a 2018 report, we’re now number one in the whole world.”

To be number one in another disturbing listing is not a good feeling to have. To be among the top 10 “worst” or “least” is bad enough, but to be ranked so for a serious disease is even more discouraging.

HIV infections are growing all around the world, and while the stigma has dissipated somewhat due to more knowledge about its causes and spread, as well as a more accepting attitude in different societies, the problem now focuses on the speed it has grown and the fact that more and more young people are getting infected by it.

In 2018, a report says UNAIDS recorded about 13,384 new HIV infections, which is notably “203 percent higher than infections recorded in 2010, with only about 4,419.”

Although they say the numbers are low compared to some countries, the growth rate has been deemed “fastest,” and it should trouble us enough to be worried we might be catching up on something we don’t want at all.

Why has there been such a rise in HIV infections?

Is it because more cases are being reported compared to the past? The UNAIDS says there are still plenty of cases — “around 15,000” — that remain undiagnosed.

It is also a fact that the Department of Health affirms that the National Capital Region has “the highest number of HIV cases — about 39 percent of the total PLHIV population.”

Of this, “80 percent of them are from younger age groups.”

This is the most troubling part: “More than 19,000 people aged 15 to 24 tested positive for HIV, while there were more than 34,500 aged 25 to 34 who tested positive.”

This is why there is a push for lowering the age of consent for HIV testing. If the AIDS law is changed, then maybe even more cases will be discovered.

Younger people experimenting or engaging in premarital sex comes to mind — and we all know education is the key to preventing indiscriminate behavior among the youth.

With family setups now different because of work situations and even the traffic, distance and time constraints can make it harder for parents to teach their children about the values that used to matter.

No matter how hard they try, factors like Internet access and social media give the youth today a vastly different kind of reality.

What is most needed then is not only for families to come together to fight against a disease that debilitates and even kills, but possibly an epidemic of indifference or fear.

Sharing knowledge is also of prime importance. “Other factors that affect the HIV epidemic among the youth are: Low level of knowledge on how HIV is transmitted and prevented; existing laws are prohibitive; low participation or engagement of the youth sector in policy-making; and lack of safe spaces, particularly adolescent health facilities,” a report goes.

Society being the way it is now, where people tend to feast on scandal or get thrills for a quick fix, it is ever more important to realize that in some ways, getting the kind of love and support from your immediate circle can go a long way into protecting a person from endangering themselves by risky actions.