MANILA, Dec 6 (AFP) - Nearly two million young people in the Philippines continue to have unprotected sex despite the risk of infection with the AIDS virus, according to a new study.

Researchers at the state-run University of the Philippines Population Institute found that 1.8 million men and 670,000 women began having sex around the age of 18, the government's Commission on Population said in a statement.

Eighty percent of the group "did not use any protection from sexually transmitted infections" including the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes the deadly and incurable Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

The Philippines has a total of 1,515 registered HIV carriers, with men aged between 19 and 30 accounting for 60 percent of the infected males and women aged 19-29 making up 40 percent of the infected females.

Tomas Osias, the executive director of the commission, said the figures had significant implications because "roughly 60 percent" of the Philippine population of about 78 million is aged under 24, and four out of every 10 Filipinos are under 15.

The population is growing at about 2.3 percent every year, one of the highest rates in the region.

Their sheer numbers, "coupled with the growing acceptability of practices they adopt from their social environment, places the young at risk if they accept and initiate themselves into risky behavior," the statement said.

The government studies found that 94 percent of the sexually active young Filipinos "admitted that they were not prepared to become parents if their sexual activity would result in unintended pregnancies."

It said that among married young Filipino women, 36 percent had already given birth to their first child before they reached 20, and that teenage pregnancies accounted for 75 percent of all maternal deaths and 17 percent of induced abortions.

The studies also found that 66 percent of males aged 15-19 smoked, drank, used drugs, and engaged in premarital sex. Thirty percent of the females in the same age group engaged in these activities, it added.

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