“Prevention is better than cure. Especially when something has no cure.”

-Anonymous

Princess Diana once said, HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven knows they need it. Evidently there has been a rapid increase in the number of individuals diagnosed with HIV per day, from just 1 in 2008 to 22 last year according to the Philippine Department of Health’s Epidemiology Bureau. In just one month in 2015 (July), there were 682 new cases registered, 17 per cent more than the same month the previous year. Ninety-four per cent of them were male and the average age was 27. Did you ever stop to wonder why there is now a full blown HIV/AIDS crisis in the country? A newly released study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that poverty may be the most important risk factor for HIV infection among heterosexuals living in urban areas and there are strong bi-directional linkages between HIV/AIDS and poverty in resource-poor settings. HIV/AIDS is at the same time a cause and an outcome of poverty, and poverty is both a cause and an outcome of HIV/AIDS.

The risk of HIV/AIDS increases when poverty forces the unemployed to resort to unskilled migratory labor pools in search of temporary and seasonal work. Poverty also drives individuals to exchange sex in order to survive. There are even cases wherein these individuals who exchange sex for money also have multiple mouths to feed. These people resort to sex work because they are excluded from formal sector employment and all other work options are too low-paying to cover basic needs. In these circumstances, individuals are poorly motivated and poorly equipped to take the necessary steps to protect themselves from HIV.

On the other hand, HIV/AIDS causes impoverishment when individuals in poor households become ill and are in need of treatment and care, , because income is lost when the earners are no longer able to work, and expenditures increase due to medical care costs. Diagnosed individuals are no longer capable of working since their capability to fully perform physical activity is hindered by their sickness. This causes a serious dilemma, since they also expend their savings and lose their assets in order to purchase medical care.

There is a strong and significant association between HIV prevalence and aspects of socio-economic performance. In general, the higher the level of HIV, the lower the level of economic performance. But we should also focus our attention on the diseased and not just n the economic factor. These individuals are suffering to get through a very serious illness while simultaneously trying put food on the table. There is no simple solution to address the predicament of the linkages between HIV/AIDS and poverty and of their mutual reinforcement. But the very fact that they are so intimately connected means that progress in reducing poverty levels will also reduce HIV transmission, and that success in reducing HIV prevalence will simultaneously serve to remove an important obstacle.