Govt promises to keep AIDS carriers' identities secret
Govt promises to keep AIDS carriers' identities secret
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Health yesterday gave assurances
that the identity of people who have the Human Immunodeficiency
Virus or the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome will be kept
secret.
The Director General for Communicable Disease Control and
Environmental Health, Hadi M. Abednego, told The Jakarta Post
yesterday that while his office collects data of people who have
AIDS and HIV from hospitals, it does not request their names.
Confidentiality is an utmost priority in handing HIV/AIDS
cases, he said.
Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in
preventing the spread of AIDS/HIV last week questioned the way
the government compiles its AIDS statistics from hospitals,
fearing that details of people with AIDS and HIV, including their
names, might fall into the wrong hands and lead to their public
exposure.
Each month the Ministry of Health updates the number of people
reported to have HIV and AIDS, sometimes giving scant details
such as their sex, age, educational background and origin.
In the last available statistics, from January, the number of
people reported to have HIV/AIDS in Indonesia reached 376
although officials believe that the actual number greatly exceeds
the reported number.
"It's true that we request the details of the person, but we
never ask for their names," Hadi said, adding that the details
include their home address, ID card number, sex and age.
"We need these details for epidemiological purposes, to study
their pattern," he said.
Without such details, it would be impossible for the
government to study the spread of HIV and AIDS in the country, he
added.
The NGO's complaint was raised during a hearing last week
between representatives of 31 organizations and Commission VIII
of the House of Representatives, responsible for social welfare.
They said the regulations requiring hospitals to report every
case of HIV and AIDS to the government are fraught with
weaknesses, and do not guarantee the confidentiality of the
people who have HIV and AIDS.
There have been cases in the past when the identities of
people with HIV and AIDS, including a pregnant woman, became
known to the media who then exposed the information to the
public.
The NGOs also used the hearing last week to complain about the
limited financial support they receive from the government.
They claimed that most of the money from foreign donors
intended to fight the spread of AIDS in Indonesia has been
channeled to government agencies.
Responding to this complaint, Hadi said the government cannot
fund all the activities of the NGOs because its own resources are
limited, and added that the NGOs should not rely on government
handouts to finance their activities. (31)