MANILA (AFP) - AIDS-related infections are rising rapidly in the Philippines although the ratio of those afflicted out of the total population remains low, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Tuesday.

An average of 29 cases a month of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) have been reported in 2007 and 2008, compared with 20 cases a month in previous years, he told a news conference.

"Although the Philippines remains a low-prevalence country, it should not be a reason to be complacent as statistics and trends show that the number of those infected are on the rise," Duque said.

A health department report on AIDS in the country called for a focus on "prevention activities geared towards vulnerable populations and a scaled up response for making available affordable treatments and control interventions."

Duque said the main ingredients for a potential AIDS epidemic were present in the Philippines, with condom use among the highest-risk segments of the population of 90 million remaining "below the universal access target."

Just 48 percent of female sex workers, 27 percent of injecting drug users and 49 percent of men having sex with men or who have had sex with multiple partners, used a condom, according to the health department report.

While transmission through heterosexual contact fell to 139 last year from 193 in 2006, transmission from homosexual contact has risen 32 percent to 107 cases over the same period, while bisexual contact nearly tripled to 74 cases, the report said.

A total of 3,305 HIV cases have been reported since 1984 in the Philippines, where 310 people have died from AIDS, the report said.

Ivorians with HIV/AIDS can now get free anti-retroviral treatment in public health centers with foreign funders picking up much of the tab, according to a decree of which AFP obtained a copy Friday.

"Antiretroviral treatment is free in all public health establishments," said the decree signed by Health Minister Remi Allah Kouadio, which took effect August 20.

Most of the treatment costs will be paid for by the US government's emergency plan for AIDS relief (PEPFAR) and the Geneva-based Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The two have earmarked 19 million dollars (13 millions euros) and seven million dollars respectively for AIDS relief over the 2008-2009 period, said Toussaint Sibailly, the doctor in charge of the PEPFAR programme here.

The Ivorian government is investing one billion CFA francs (two million dollars) into the project.

Funders hope to treat 77,000 people during the first period, rising to 104,000 by 2010, Sibailly said.

Roughly 4.7 percent of people are HIV-positive in the west African country, according to a 2005-2006 national survey, translating to about 750,000 people of which about a seventh are eligible for anti-retroviral treatment.

Traditional sexual practices including polygamy and promiscuity are driving rampant HIV-AIDS in Swaziland where nearly 40 percent of adults are infected, a UN study released Friday has found.

The research found that polygamy, widow inheritance, multiple female partners, and extramarital relationships -- in the past viewed as important for keeping society together -- increased vulnerability to HIV-AIDS.

"If one sexual partner in such sexual networks is HIV positive and sex is unprotected, the practice becomes an important driver of the pandemic," said the UN Development Programme (UNDP)'s Swaziland Human Development Report for 2008.

Several studies had identified polygamy as a negative influence on the spread of HIV but "a defensive attitude has been maintained by the cultural gate-keepers" to preserve the practice, the study said.

Swaziland's absolute monarch King Mwasti III has thirteen wives and polygamy is widely practised in the tiny kingdom, but the UN study hints it might be on the decline.

The impoverished mountainous kingdom has been particularly badly hit by southern Africa's AIDS pandemic, with close to 40 percent of the adult population affected by the virus.

The UNDP's report found that multiple sexual partners, the loss of virginity at a young age, high levels of inter-generational sex and inconsistent condom use were the pandemic's main drivers.

Also contributing were gender inequality, sexual violence, a high prevalence of STIs, low levels of male circumcision and the cultural norms.