Papua New Guinea HIV/AIDS Cases Up 10 Per Cent

Excerpt from report by Fiona Harepa, published by Papua New Guinea newspaper The National website on 5 August

About 220 new HIV/AIDS cases are being reported in the country every month – a tenfold increase from last year.

“(The spread) has increased so rapidly that it has reached an alarming rate,” Parliamentary HIV/AIDS Committee Chairman Dr Banare Bun yesterday.

He said although statistics showed that only about 2 per cent of the country’s 5.4 million people were infected, “everyone is vulnerable”.

Dr Bun, who was speaking at a joint meeting between his committee and the Parliamentary Referral Committee on Health and Family Welfare, said 90 per cent of the transmission was through heterosexual contact without the use of condom.

“To address the spread of HIV/AIDS we need to address the sex issue, especially when it is practised without the use of condom,” he said. He said poverty was one of the contributing factors towards the rapid increase. “Where there is an increase in poverty in a country, similarly there will be an increase in HIV/AIDS because of unprotected sex.

“Every province in PNG has recorded cases of HIV/AIDS with the NCD [National Capital District] being the highest, followed by Western Highlands, Morobe and Eastern Highlands.” He added that whether prostitution remained illegal or otherwise, the trade would continue. [passage omitted]