More cases of HIV/AIDS reported to health officials

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Health last month recorded 14 more cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), bringing Indonesia's official total to 463.

Twelve people tested positive for HIV and two were discovered to have AIDS.

Director General for Communicable Disease Control and Environmental Health Hadi M. Abednego said there was a direct correlation between the increase in the number of HIV and AIDS cases and the cost of health care because it took an average of ten years for HIV to develop into AIDS.

Hadi said 1994 ministry estimates put the "direct lifetime treatment cost" for each person with HIV or AIDS at US$8,000. Indirect costs were an estimated $31,700.

Direct cost was the estimated cost of the medical treatment likely to be required. Indirect cost was an estimate of potential earnings likely to be lost by people with the syndrome, he said.

"Medical treatment for people with AIDS is expensive and still, unfortunately, they do not get better. They die, instead," Hadi said.

Direct and indirect costs increase as the condition develops.

"So, the message is, we have to prevent people from contracting the virus because medical treatment will not cure them," he said.

Indonesia has not earmarked special funding for the treatment of HIV or AIDS. Funding currently comes from the government allotment to hospitals.

"Poor people with AIDS, can get free treatment in state-owned hospitals," he said.

Stefano Lazzari, the World Health Organization (WHO) Medical Officer on Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS in Indonesia, warned that an HIV pandemic was costly and debilitating.

"The only way to reduce the burden is to immediately start sound and effective preventive interventions," Lazzari said at a seminar on health care insurance Thursday.

WHO estimates 25.5 million adults and 2.4 million children worldwide are currently living with HIV, 19 million in Sub- Saharan Africa, five million in South and Southeast Asia and 1.6 million in Latin America.

"The global AIDS epidemic is now spreading faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world. Soon, more Asians than Africans will be getting infected each year," Lazzari said.

Africa was experiencing an increase in AIDS cases from infections 10 years ago, but South and Southeast Asia are seeing an increase in new HIV infections among vulnerable population groups, he said.

"By year 2000, the cumulative number of infections in Asia will be eight to ten million cases and the annual incidence would far exceed that seen in sub-Saharan Africa," Lazzari said.

India, with five million cases, had the largest number of HIV- positive people in the world, he estimated.

The ministry routinely receives reports from regional and local health offices monitoring AIDS and HIV.

Hadi said of the 12 HIV-positive people, ten were residents of Maluku, one was from Jakarta and one from East Java. The two with AIDS come from Jakarta and North Sulawesi. Twelve were women in their 20's while the two with AIDS were men in their 40's.

The national tally records 110 people with AIDS -- 66 of whom have died, and 353 HIV-positive people, including an infant.

In Jakarta 156 people have AIDS or are HIV-positive. Irian Jaya has 111 people with the condition, Riau has 44, East Java has 36 and Bali has 35. (ste)