First AIDS death reported in NTB

MATARAM, West Nusa Tenggara: The remains of I Gusti Dodi, a 21- year-old AIDS patient in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), was cremated by his family on Monday.

He died two days earlier after being hospitalized for three days at the Mataram General Hospital. He was previously treated at a hospital in Singaraja, Bali, for a month.

Doctor Soesbandoro, the director of the hospital in Mataram, confirmed the man died of AIDS-related complications.

Dodi is survived by a wife and a three-year-old child.

This was the first recorded AIDS-related death in West Nusa Tenggara. In 1996, a foreigner in the province was found to have AIDS and was deported. -- JP