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)