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Health minister: Up to 30 percent have HIV infection in remote Papua-New Guinea
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/18/asia/AS_GEN_Asia_WHO_Papua_New_Guinea_HIV.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/18/asia/AS_GEN_Asia_WHO_Papua_New_Guinea_HIV.php
AUCKLAND, New Zealand
HIV infection rates in pockets of Papua New Guinea's remote highlands may be as high as 30 percent, the country's health minister said Monday ? a startlingly high number in a country where the AIDS problem is already the worst in Asia.
Health Minister Peter Barter told the World Health Organization's annual Asia-Pacific conference that confirmed HIV infection rates were in the double digits in several areas of Papua New Guinea, and some records from central Enga province suggested pockets where almost one third of the population were infected.
He said the HIV infection rate nationally was between 1 percent and 3 percent.
"We've had up to 30 percent results HIV positive" based on hospital pathology reports from the western and southern part of Enga, Barter told the conference in Auckland, New Zealand.
Barter confirmed the figure to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference, saying, "It was a shock to me" that such pockets of infection may exist.
He said that at the Porgera gold mine, a joint venture in Enga between Canada's Placer Dome and the Papua New Guinea government, "we have recorded 12 percent of our work force is HIV positive ? and in other areas of Papua New Guinea it goes as high as 15 percent. That is a confirmed figure."
The 30 percent figure was "not an across the board ... but it's certainly scary when you look at certain specific areas," Barter said.
UNAIDS, the U.N. body leading the global war on AIDS, in a June report said Papua New Guinea had the Asia-Pacific region's highest adult per capita HIV infection rate of 1.8 percent but that the political will to tackle the problem was absent.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, WHO's Western Pacific regional director who is currently on leave, said in June that Papua New Guinea may be on the path to an Africa-type AIDS crisis.
Barter conceded authorities have been slow to deal with the HIV threat in his country, but said the government had recently launched an HIV strategic plan.
He said coordination, not lack of funds, was part of the problem.
A report to the conference Monday said AIDS remains a major concern for the Western Pacific region's 1.8 billion people, where some 78,000 people died from the disease in 2005.
UNAIDS estimated 8.3 million people were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, last year in the entire Asia-Pacific region, including South Asia _and nearly 85 percent of those infected had no access to antiretroviral drug treatment. South Asia and a few Southeast Asia countries, including Indonesia and Thailand, are not part of the WHO's Western Pacific region.
"The HIV epidemic continues to take a great toll on our region, with nearly 600 new cases and 200 deaths every day," Richard Nesbit, the WHO's acting director for the Western Pacific, told the conference.
He credited progress in Cambodia, where the HIV rate among the adult population has dropped from 3 percent in 1997 to 1.8 percent last year. But he called on the governments of China, Malaysia and Vietnam to step up efforts to fight the disease among high-risk groups, such as sex workers and injecting drug users, to try to prevent the virus from reaching the general population.
"However, the situation in Papua New Guinea ... is a cause for concern," he added.
HIV infection rates in pockets of Papua New Guinea's remote highlands may be as high as 30 percent, the country's health minister said Monday ? a startlingly high number in a country where the AIDS problem is already the worst in Asia.
Health Minister Peter Barter told the World Health Organization's annual Asia-Pacific conference that confirmed HIV infection rates were in the double digits in several areas of Papua New Guinea, and some records from central Enga province suggested pockets where almost one third of the population were infected.
He said the HIV infection rate nationally was between 1 percent and 3 percent.
"We've had up to 30 percent results HIV positive" based on hospital pathology reports from the western and southern part of Enga, Barter told the conference in Auckland, New Zealand.
Barter confirmed the figure to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference, saying, "It was a shock to me" that such pockets of infection may exist.
He said that at the Porgera gold mine, a joint venture in Enga between Canada's Placer Dome and the Papua New Guinea government, "we have recorded 12 percent of our work force is HIV positive ? and in other areas of Papua New Guinea it goes as high as 15 percent. That is a confirmed figure."
The 30 percent figure was "not an across the board ... but it's certainly scary when you look at certain specific areas," Barter said.
UNAIDS, the U.N. body leading the global war on AIDS, in a June report said Papua New Guinea had the Asia-Pacific region's highest adult per capita HIV infection rate of 1.8 percent but that the political will to tackle the problem was absent.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, WHO's Western Pacific regional director who is currently on leave, said in June that Papua New Guinea may be on the path to an Africa-type AIDS crisis.
Barter conceded authorities have been slow to deal with the HIV threat in his country, but said the government had recently launched an HIV strategic plan.
He said coordination, not lack of funds, was part of the problem.
A report to the conference Monday said AIDS remains a major concern for the Western Pacific region's 1.8 billion people, where some 78,000 people died from the disease in 2005.
UNAIDS estimated 8.3 million people were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, last year in the entire Asia-Pacific region, including South Asia _and nearly 85 percent of those infected had no access to antiretroviral drug treatment. South Asia and a few Southeast Asia countries, including Indonesia and Thailand, are not part of the WHO's Western Pacific region.
"The HIV epidemic continues to take a great toll on our region, with nearly 600 new cases and 200 deaths every day," Richard Nesbit, the WHO's acting director for the Western Pacific, told the conference.
He credited progress in Cambodia, where the HIV rate among the adult population has dropped from 3 percent in 1997 to 1.8 percent last year. But he called on the governments of China, Malaysia and Vietnam to step up efforts to fight the disease among high-risk groups, such as sex workers and injecting drug users, to try to prevent the virus from reaching the general population.
"However, the situation in Papua New Guinea ... is a cause for concern," he added.