Husbands come first in HIV treatment

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

When a month's dose of medicines for HIV treatment still cost around Rp 8 million (US$860) in 1997, Febri, her husband Toro and their son Sandy (not their real names), who had all contracted the HIV virus, could not afford to buy medicines for the whole family.

The couple later decided that Toro would be the first to take the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs because he was considered "the breadwinner", although both Febri and Toro worked together in running their business.

Years later, when the price of ARV's halved to Rp 4 million, the couple prioritized Sandy's treatment.

Febri, now 33, was the last in the family to start taking the ARVs.

Till now, the couple has not endeavored to discover who it was that first contracted the HIV virus.

"Such practice, where wives put themselves behind their husbands or children regarding ARV, happens quite often," Atiek, an activist at the Pelita Ilmu Foundation, said on Tuesday.

She said the foundation discovered the phenomenon at a gathering of some 40 women living with HIV/AIDS in April 2004.

The women confided that if the family could not afford to buy drugs for more than one person, then the husbands got first priority, although in many cases the women were infected from their husbands.

Tika (also not her real name), 16, got married last year to an injecting drug user (IDU), though she did not know this at the time. Four months after the wedding, her husband died from AIDS at the age of 22.

Marini (not her real name), 26, has a different story. Her husband, who was also an IDU, had known before they got married that he had contracted the HIV virus. But he did not tell her because he did not want to lose her.

In 2002, their three-month-old daughter was hospitalized for three months for various illness. The hospital performed a blood tests on the baby and the results showed that she was HIV positive.

Afterwards, Marini found out that she also was HIV positive.

"We were separated at that time. When I found out, I called him and yelled, saying rude things to him because I was so angry. Had he told me earlier I could have received some treatment while I was pregnant so that my baby would not have contracted the virus," she said.

"Researchers have found that women have a higher risk of contracting HIV through sexual activity. One of the reasons for this is because virus concentrations in semen are higher than that in vaginal fluid," Zubairi Djoerban, a specialist in HIV/AIDS, explained on Tuesday during a seminar on women and HIV/AIDS.

He added that a lot of women, who are economically dependent upon men, were more vulnerable to HIV.

"For economic reasons, a lot of women are afraid to refuse sexual intercourse with men although they suspect the men have HIV," he said.

He added that most female sex workers were powerless if their clients refused to use condoms.

The government has estimated that there are between 90,000 and 130,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia.