KPA turns attention to households as HIV/AIDS epidemic spreads

Luh De Suryani, ,  The Jakarta Post, ,  Denpasar   |  Wed, 12/31/2008 10:50 AM  |  Bali

Alerted by a rise in the number of HIV/AIDS cases involving low-risk population groups, the Bali Aids Commission (KPA) plans to focus its preventative strategies on households, and in particular mothers and newborn babies, a KPA official says.

KPA chief of daily operations AA Ngurah Puspayoga, who is also Bali's deputy governor, said there was an increased possibility of an AIDS epidemic. He was speaking during a Bali KPA meeting at the Kertasabha building in Denpasar, Tuesday.

Puspayoga said the increasing number of mothers and newborn babies living with the disease meant the virus had spread beyond people considered to be at high-risk of infection, including people who inject themselves with drugs, sex workers and homosexuals.

He said the commission would focus its attention on "high-risk" households as part of a five-year preventative strategy.

"We have to create a new strategy to reach the households; the mother and children group," he said.

The Bali KPA has based its strategy for the 2008-2012 period on the results of studies on all reported cases on the island up until 2007. The critical data includes the number of people at risk of contracting HIV, the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS and the results of surveys conducted throughout the country.

Its latest report revealed that housewives were the group with the largest increase in infection cases.

It said the typical scenario was a husband -- unaware that he was living with the disease -- transmitting the virus to his wife, who would then pass it one to her child.

The total number of male non-drug users infected through heterosexual intercourse reached 801 as of May 31 this year. Of that number, most of those who were married passed the disease to their wives before they had developed symptoms of AIDS.

Of the 801, 212 were private company employees, 168 were unemployed, 124 were blue-collar workers, 71 were drivers, 21 were civil servants and 13 were members of the armed services or the police. Of the total, 560 lived in either Buleleng or Denpasar.

"And since these people aren't injected drug users, there's a good chance they got the disease from sex workers or another sex partner," said Gede Ranayana, secretary of Bali KPA.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg because these people are those who voluntarily reported their condition to a hospital or a clinic."

Furthermore, as many as 35 mothers and infants were living with HIV in Bali as of October this year.

"Most HIV cases involving newborn babies were only detected after birth. If the mother had found out she was HIV positive before she gave birth, the infection to the babies could have been prevented via the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission program or PMTCT," Ranayana said.

The PMTCT program uses antiretroviral drugs and dictates safer breast feeding techniques to ensure the virus is not passed from mother to infant.

The number of mothers participating in PMTCT at Sanglah hospital, the island's largest medical facility, increased to 12 last year from two in 2002.

Ranayana said there were more mothers and infants living with HIV on the island than the KPA figures suggested.

He said the increasing frequency of HIV infections involving non-high risk bracket people was a result of a failure to reach out to sex workers and their customers.

Adapting to recent police raids on red-light districts on the island, the sex trade has become mobile and spread to remote villages.

A behavioral survey by the KPA shows that only 31 percent of customers of sex services used a condom during their latest session and that only 17 percent had used a condom in the last week.

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