Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV) can now live normally as long as they take their medicines regularly, experts said as they compared the Human ImmunoDeficiency Virus (HIV) into other chronic diseases.

“I am comparing HIV to diabetes or hypertension,” Dr. Rossana Ditaqio, head of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Research Group of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) said in a recent forum organized by the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP).

Ditaqio said she inspires her patients by telling them the condition of American Basketball player Magic Johnson who is living with HIV but is able to live normal life.

“HIV infection is almost like diabetes or hypertension in terms of treatment and outcome because patients are living normal lives if they take their medication and maintenance drugs and observe healthy lifestyle, like in diabetes. You just have to control it to prevent the complications,” she added.

HIV is transmitted through sex, from an infected mother to an unborn child, injected drugs use, infected blood transmission, infected needle prick injury.

PLHIV can avail of free Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs therapy in hospitals accredited by the Department of Health (DoH).

Dr. Gerard Belimac, DoH program manager for HIV said 731 patients are currently under ARV treatment of the DoH. This is out of the total 4,138 HIV and AIDS patients in the DOH registry since 1984. “The others either do not need ARV or they have not availed of it,” Belimac said.

ARV drugs merely suppress the multiplication of the virus and it does not cure the patient from the disease. The reduction of the virus reduces the risk of the patient contracting infections.

Ditaqio said her oldest HIV patient is now 72 years old, emphasizing that proper medical care is key to living a regular life. “It depends on how you manage yourself,” she said.

HIV, a disease that compromises the immune system, could turn into full blown AIDS but some female patients who observe healthy lifestyles and take their medicines regularly even gave birth without medical supervision, Ditaqio said.

Although doctors discourage HIV patients to bear children, Ditaqio said they give patients information and options but the ultimate decision lies in the couple.
“There are interventions we can do so we can bring down the risk of transmission” to the husband and to the baby, she said, adding that without intervention, the risk of HIV transmission to an unborn child is 15 to 35 percent.

“We can bring this down to one percent by giving ARV prophylaxis or through a caesarean section delivery. It's up to the women to decide whether to get pregnant or not. We have a patient who took the risk. We supported them with medical intervention. Fortunately her baby was not infected,” Ditaqio said.

But the expert emphasized that even with medical interventions, there is no absolute chance that the unborn child will not get infected with the virus. “For sexual transmission, the risk of getting HIV/AIDS after one unprotected sex is between 0.1 percent to 1 percent. But what if that was your unlucky night?,” she said.

Ditaqio said an early HIV testing would allow patients the time to avail of early medical care. “If there would be massive testing, HIV would become mainstream like diabetes, cancer or hypertension,” she said.