Sexually Transmitted Infections: The Contemporary Era

The current era is facing a lot of issues right now.  And one of these issues is related towards unsafe sex.  Teenagers and curiosity are 2 dangerous things to be fused with. Sometimes teenagers nowadays are careless of their actions and tend to do things that please them disregarding its side effects. This does not only mean about unsafe sex but it could potentially branch out to different sexual organ diseases, teenage pregnancy and the deadliest among all which is sexually transmitted diseases.

Cases of the HIV/AIDS disease has never stopped since its rise in the 1980s. This disease is not common to the world especially our country, the Philippines. The common risks of getting this disease are usually having sexual intercourse (vaginal, oral or anal) with multiple partners or with someone who is HIV positive; sex among a man and another man (MSM); using illegal injected drugs and; shared needles or syringes.  In the initial phase, symptoms begin to occur after the first two months of exposure and they will experience flu-like symptoms; fever; headache; tiredness; and enlarged lymph nodes. It is also possible that early symptoms will not occur. Early AIDS symptoms include fatigue; lack of energy; weight loss; frequent low-grade fevers; and night sweats. Later AIDS symptoms (from HIV to full AIDS) include symptoms from infections; coughing; shortness of breath; seizures to very critical conditions such as coma; kaposi’s sarcoma; cervical cancer; and lymphaphoma.

                In the Philippine situation, aside from the common occurrence of contracting the virus through the risks, there are also several factors that affects the reason why HIV/AIDS in the country is alarmingly growing. Lack of public education and awareness about HIV is a very simple one, yet hard to solve. Because of Filipinos’ mindset about contracting the disease, they think it’s shameful to reveal getting the disease, so that’s why there is a lot of unrecorded cases here. Not only they think it’s shameful, it means that instead of helping and supporting those who were infected, it is possible they will get discriminated and shamed upon. And also since unprotected sex is common to people who are involved in MSM, it still remains a great risk factor because the Philippines is very conservative in terms of sexual orientation and people are not open about talking sex especially when it’s about MSM.

The solution towards facing these problems tend to be easier when thought about but harder to do in action for others might take it for granted.  By giving people knowledge on what might be the possible outcome of certain action will possibly result them to be more careful of their doings.  Some of these interventions may be counseling, to give student hands-on focus and handing them tools that are aiming towards better knowledge. In the country, sex education is one way of spreading awareness, although the Church does not approve of it, but implementing sex education in an appropriate manner and age group, there’s completely nothing wrong about it. We also need to change our perception on how we deal with diseases and sexual intercourse with the same sex. We need not to shame and condemn them for getting that disease and we must comfort and support them so that they will not feel shameful of themselves.