Man with AIDS in hiding

Man with AIDS in hiding

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara: A man with HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, has gone into hiding in a forest to avoid the health
authorities and the police, who he fears will isolate him from
the rest of the world, his wife says.

Agnes Bura said her husband Silvister Peka has told her he
contracted the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus this year while he
was working on a plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, where he admitted
to sleeping with prostitutes.

She said her husband was deported from Sabah after a local
Malaysian hospital tested him for the virus. The hospital's
diagnosis was later confirmed by a hospital in Nunukan, East
Kalimantan.

Silvister knew that the Nunukan hospital had notified health
authorities in Flores of his planned arrival so that he could be
monitored. But he managed to evade them and returned home to East
Andora Island safely.

Agnes said the authorities started tracking him down after she
came to a Kupang hospital for a check-up.

"He has been hiding in coffee plantations in East Adonara
because he is afraid that the health authorities and the police
will catch him," she told The Jakarta Post. (yac)