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Rachel Cook
Australia’s federal government has committed $40
million to fight HIV in Indonesia.
The Foreign Minister
Stephen Smith announced the renewed Australian aid package in Perth last week, during his meeting with
Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Hassan Wirajuda.
The package,
which will be spread out over three years, would mostly
benefit resource-rich Papua, where more than 3,000 people from a total
population of 2.5 million are infected with HIV/AIDS.
The funding has been welcomed by the Burnet
Institute, one of Australia’s
leading medical research and public health institutes.
“It’s an
important contribution,” Gary Reid, Senior Fellow at the Burnet Institute’s Centre
for Harm Reduction told MCV. “It can never be enough but it is quite a critical
contribution.”
According to the
Burnet Institute, injecting drug users make up around 50% of Indonesia’s AIDS cases, while 40%
of cases occur among heterosexuals. Homosexuals make up the remaining 10% of
cases.
Although it’s
hoped that Australia’s
contribution will head off a major epidemic in Indonesia, figures suggest that
slowing the rate of transmission will not be easy.
“The latest [Indonesian]
figures for people who are HIV positive from 2006 [is] 193,000 people, so the
epidemic is underway.” Mr Reid explained, “And when it moves into the general
community, which it has done in Papua, there is cause for great concern. It is
in all 32 provinces of Indonesia.
It is one of the largest growing HIV epidemics in Asia.”
Mr Reid said that
the Indonesian government was alarmed by increase.
“They are being
more proactive and making information more accessible to the general public.”
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