T

he number of people living with HIV/AIDS in South Sulawesi is growing at an alarming rate from year to year, the provincial AIDS Commission (KPAD) said Wednesday in Makassar.

The KPAD recorded 2,370 people living with the disease in 2008, compared to 1,884 in 2007 - an increase of 486 people.

Raden Mulyati, an official at the KPAD data processing unit, said that of the current total, 1,731 people had been diagnosed with HIV, while 639 had full-blown AIDS.

"As many as 2,370 people in South Sulawesi were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS by the end of last year, but we estimate the number could be higher," she said.

She added the exact number of those who had contracted the disease was unclear because many of their deaths had gone unnoticed.

Only those who had died in hospital had been recorded, but she said the number could likely stand at 300 on the grounds that 191 HIV/AIDS deaths were recorded as of September last year.

Data from the HIV/AIDS unit at Wahidin Sudirohusodo Regional Hospital in Makassar shows 40 people died from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses in 2008, fewer than the 87 who died in 2007, while 208 people were infected with the virus.

The HIV/AIDS team has attended to 47 people who came for counseling and tests in January this year, of whom 11 were diagnosed with HIV.

The hospital is currently treating the 11 patients. Last week, a patient died at the hospital before getting intensive treatment.

Mahmud, coordinator of the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) unit at the hospital, said 24 of the 208 people detected with the disease who had undergone treatment were children between the ages of 7 months and 3 years.

"Three of them are included in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission program," he said.

He added that counseling and test results showed that the dominant cause of death among most HIV/AIDS patients was tuberculosis.

Of the 208 people diagnosed with the disease, 65 suffered from tuberculosis, and most of the 40 patients who died also suffered from it.

The major cause of HIV/AIDS transmission in South Sulawesi is believed to be through the sharing of needles among drug addicts, making up 60 percent of cases, followed by heterosexual intercourse.

The hospital's clinic is also running short of methadone, a substitute drug mainly used in the drug rehabilitation program, especially for injecting drug users.

"We sent a letter last Friday to request more supplies, but nothing has arrived so far," Mahmud said.

A delay in the methadone shipment, he went on, would definitely hamper the program, because the patients had to have their daily oral supplies of methadone to wean them off their addictions.