AIDS epidemic is ‘galloping’ through Papua New Guinea

AN AIDS epidemic is “galloping” through impoverished Papua New Guinea, spread by polygamous marriages and inadequate government health and education programmes, United Nations officials warn.

Dr Nii-k Plange, the country’s co-ordinator for UNAIDS, said the problem is so bad unclaimed bodies of AIDS victims pile up in the morgue of the country’s main hospital until a charity collects them to give them a decent burial.

The UN group says 40,000 people in the country of five million are living with the HIV virus and the epidemic is being spread by people who have unprotected sex with multiple partners.

The problem is compounded by police harassment of AIDS workers and underfunded government efforts to combat the spread of the epidemic, Dr Plange said in a recent telephone interview.

Fighting AIDS in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific regions will be highlighted at a meeting of AIDS officials and activists starting today in the New Zealand city of Auckland.

The New Zealand AIDS Foundation said more than 450 delegates are to attend the four-day conference, including researchers, community activists, Pacific region leaders, and people living with HIV from throughout the region.

Executive director Rachael Le Mesurier said: “This is the first time an international HIV and AIDS conference has concentrated on the Pacific region.”

Dr Prasada Rao, Asia Pacific Regional Director for UNAIDS, said Papua New Guinea was an example of how bad the disease could get in the region.

“It has the characteristics of the sub-Saharan epidemic,” Dr Rao said, adding that the virus was taking hold in all provinces of the sprawling half-island nation north of Australia.

Dr Rao said the virus was being spread predominantly through heterosexual sex.

“And because both men and women have multiple sex partners then it really gallops, when women have multiple sex partners the epidemic really gallops, and that’s what is happening in Papua New Guinea.”

Dr Plange said polygamous marriages were traditional in parts of Papua New Guinea.

He said education about the virus also needs to be stepped up, as does the use of condoms.

But he said: “The government is beginning to be receptive, it’s beginning to take responsibility. We would like it to do more, in terms of more robust advocacy ... maybe allocating more financial resources.”

The country’s under-resourced police force, accused in a recent Human Rights Watch report of widespread abuses including attacks on AIDS workers, is being educated about human rights by UN and Australian aid officials, he said.