Young drug addicts targeted to curb quick spread of HIV/AIDS
Remmy Faizal, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
At first he had only meant to try something new, something he had often seen being done by his schoolmates.
"I was aware that I was in an unhealthy environment at school. But it was my own choice to try it in the end," said Keju, describing his introduction to the world of injecting drugs in 1996. He was still in junior high school at the time.
From then, he became an injecting drug user (IDU) who ended up having to undergo a series of detoxification therapies before being allowed to enter a drug rehabilitation center.
"There was a time when my family had to sell a car to pay the expenses," Keju said.
His family's efforts finally paid off when he decided to quit using drugs in 2001.
After three years free of drugs, a new problem emerged.
"I met an old friend who also used to be an IDU. He persuaded me to take test for AIDS. It was then, I found out that I was HIV positive," Keju told a public discussion themed Saving the Youth from HIV/AIDS at the Central Jakarta municipal office on Wednesday.
Keju is one of many young people who are known to have been infected by the virus by sharing needles.
But unlike him, a lot of injecting drug users are still unaware of how prone they are to HIV/AIDS.
The government's statistics, while they are not a complete picture, show that many people known to be living with HIV/AIDS are injecting drug users, and many of these are teenagers.
The Ministry of Health recorded in 2003 the number of drug users known to have HIV/AIDS in Jakarta numbered 122, a figure that jumped to 1,095 in 2004. As of March this year, there were an additional 438 known cases, 59 percent of them caused by virus transmission through dirty needles or hospital blood transfusions.
This lack of knowledge about the dangers of transmission through drug-use led to the Catholic University of Atma Jaya establishing the Health Information Kiosk program, widely known as Kios. Keju has joined one of Kios' support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Running since February 2002, Kios provides free HIV/AIDS tests, medical treatment, counseling, and group programs where former and current drug users with HIV-AIDS can share stories and help each other out.
The program has been established in 27 districts in Jakarta, mostly in slum areas, said Kios director Lamtiur Tambunan, a speaker at the discussion.
"This new 'trend' -- the spreading of HIV/AIDS through injecting drug users -- means we must support and help IDUs to realize the danger (they are in). From there, we have them take HIV/AIDS tests and seek medical treatment (when necessary)."
"Discrimination will only make the matters worse," she said.
Another speaker, Nasrun Hadi, a member of the Stop Aids Action Foundation (ASA), asserted that early intervention among youth groups at-risk from drugs was vital to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"To achieve this, there must be strong cooperation between non-governmental organizations and the government. And of course, we must not forget to involve the wider society," Lamtiur added.