Men biggest contributor and biggest victims of HIV/AIDS

Irawaty Wardany ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Denpasar   |  Wed, 07/23/2008 10:52 AM  |  Bali

Without a significant change in behavior, some 2 million people in Indonesia, mostly men, will contracted HIV/AIDS within the next 12 years, a senior official at the National AIDS Commission said.

"Recently, we have completed an epidemiology study on HIV/AIDS to predict the most vulnerable group and the biggest contributor to the spread of the disease in 2020," commission secretary Nafsiah Mboi said in a meeting in Nusa Dua on Monday.

Men came out as both the most vulnerable and biggest contributors to the proliferation of the disease, she said.

According to the commission's Bali chapter, there were almost 2,000 people living with HIV/AIDS as of March this year on the island.

Nafsiah said that there were three models of the spread of HIV and AIDS; men who visit commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men and injecting drug users.

"If we can change the behavior of 60 percent of the ... men ... we expect to see a significant decrease in new cases by 2015," she said.

Currently, the total official reported cumulative cases of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia had reached 12,000, but she estimated that the actual number was more than 200,000.

She said men should start realizing the danger of HIV/AIDS and change their behavior because they would not only infect the commercial sex workers, but also their wives.

"They can either stop having sex with commercial sex workers or use condoms," she said, adding that currently there were around nine million men who regularly had sex with commercial sex workers.

The spread of HIV/AIDS among wives is increasing, she said, "because many husbands who use the service of commercial sex workers refuse to use condoms".

She said that even though the commission had yet to get nationwide data on the spread of HIV and AIDS among wives, data from Papua and West Papua had confirmed her fear about the increase.

Program manager of the commission's Bali chapter, Ilyas Pawelloi, said the chapter was focusing on skill training for local sex workers to help them find other jobs.

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