HIV/AIDS cases continue to soar in Papua province this year

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura, Papua

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Papua province now reaches 1,398 and has sparked concern among Papuans and local health officials. Of the total, 912 people have been diagnosed HIV-positive and 486 have developed AIDS.

The disease has killed 172 people in Papua since it was first detected in the province in 1992, according to data obtained from Papua Administration health office.

Executive Director John Rahail of the Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association (PKBI) in Papua said on Monday that the number of people who had contracted the deadly disease could be much higher and that the current figure may only be the tip of the iceberg.

He estimated that the actual number of people with HIV/AIDS could be 10 times the current figure.

He said if the estimated figure -- 1/17 of the 2.4 million- strong Papuan population -- was correct, it meant that Papua was overrun by the disease.

Rahail said the had virus spread evenly across almost all areas in the province, including remote areas.

A recent survey conducted by the Papua health office discovered that, in the Waris area on the border of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, three out of the 383 people surveyed had contracted the disease.

In Puncak Jaya regency, provincial health officials recorded one HIV-positive case; in Jayawijaya regency, eight were HIV- positive, while in Nabire regency, 14 people had contracted HIV and 44 had developed AIDS.

Merauke regency has the greatest number of HIV/AIDS cases at 561, followed by Timika regency with 514 cases and Jayapura regency with 101 cases.

Rahail said the spread of HIV/AIDS in remote areas was mostly caused by the negative habits of native villagers. For example, some individuals went to towns and procured the services of sex workers, after which they returned to their home villages and passed on HIV/AIDS to their partners.

Rahail added that economic hardships and urbanization had contributed to the alarming number of people infected with the deadly disease, as more and more rural women were traveling to urban areas due to a lack of jobs at home and became sex workers.

Data provided by Mother's Hope Foundation supported this trend, finding that 90 percent of 284 sex workers surveyed recently in Jayapura, the capital of Papua, were native Papuans.

Another factor contributing into the high number of people infected with the lethal disease was the lack of public awareness and knowledge on HIV/AIDS. Gunawan Ongkokusumo from the AIDS Stop Action-Family Health International asserted that local residents were generally active with several different partners, but rarely used condoms and contributed to the rapid spread of sexually transmitted diseases.