Indonesians not fully informed about AIDS
JAKARTA (JP): In spite of the media barrage of news on the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, Indonesians still do not fully grasp the dangers of the disease for which there is no cure, a leading expert on AIDS said yesterday.
"AIDS in Indonesia is now at the same stage it was in Thailand five years ago. This is very scary," Nona Poeroe Utomo, the director of the Indonesian AIDS Foundation, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
Nona said questions she receives from the public on her regular talk show for a private Jakarta radio station indicate that ignorance of AIDS is not restricted to the poor, but is also common among Indonesia's elite.
"They are asking the basic questions like whether or not AIDS is contagious," she said, stressing that the target audience of her talk show is young executives. "This shows that the level of awareness about AIDS among the public is not where it should be."
She said the level of awareness among health authorities is not much better.
The State Health Insurance Program, for example, excludes AIDS because it is considered to be "self inflicted" although, like cancer, it is a terminal disease.
In the regions, the situation is even worse than it is in the capital.
Many doctors and nurses working at health community centers still use disposable syringes more than once although they have a sufficient stock supplied by the Ministry of Health.
"It's something they can be proud of, if at the end of the year they could report to the authorities that they did not use the entire number of syringes supplied to them," Nona said.
The AIDS Foundation was established last year with the objective of raising the public's awareness of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which causes AIDS.
Nona, a psychologist by training, who has her own counseling practice, manages the day-to-day operations of the foundation.
A number of prominent figures lend credence to the organization, including former health minister Adhiyatma, former minister of environment Emil Salim, tycoon and chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross Ibnu Sutowo, lawyer Kartini Mulyadi and psychologist Sarlito Wirawan.
Government figures put the number of people having tested positive for HIV in Indonesia at 256, but some officials and experts believe the actual number is much higher, some suggesting 50,000. What is certain is that the number of people reported with HIV has increased exponentially over the years.
The reality of the AIDS danger for Indonesia hit home last June when President Soeharto established an inter-ministerial committee to contain the spread of AIDS. The committee is chaired by Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Azwar Anas.
Azwar said the committee is drawing up a combat action plan, pointing out that failure to act now could bring the number of HIV infected people to 300,000 by the year 2000. This would represent about $2 billion a year in medical costs.
Yesterday, Nona blamed the ignorance largely on the public's lack of access to accurate information about AIDS and HIV.
She said the anti-AIDS campaign had been solely focused on a specific target, for example the red-light districts, as if the virus originated from there and would always remain there.
The truth is that the virus was brought in from outside, "but we tend to forget that".
AIDS extension workers sent to the red-light districts must also take part in the blame because they tend to give out minimum information, thinking that the prostitutes, in view of their low educational backgrounds, cannot absorb all of the facts and advise.
Stop working
One typical piece of advise given to a prostitute who had contracted the virus was that she should stop working because she was not healthy, Nona said.
The key to the anti-AIDS campaign is information and education and neither of these have been "adequate" in Indonesia, she said.
On the question of education for teenagers, she said the endeavor has been made difficult in the absence of sex education as a subject at schools. "It represents a big leap if they suddenly have to be taught about AIDS from nothing."
The AIDS virus is transmitted either through sexual contacts, infected syringes or contaminated blood transfusion.
Nona said another major obstacle to the anti-AIDS campaign in Indonesia is the people's attitude towards the disease.
She also noted a tendency among Indonesians, including public leaders, to dismiss lightly the dangers and implications by stressing that traditional and religious values and the state ideology Pancasila are shielding the nation from the catastrophe.
This kind of self denial is obstructing the campaign to drive home the message about AIDS, she said. (emb)