W

est Java, which has one of the country's highest HIV/AIDS prevalences, is seeking to include sex and drugs education in the junior high curriculum to prevent the spread of the disease among youths.

Teddy Hidayat, a member of the HIV/AIDS mitigation team at Hasan Sadikin General Hospital in Bandung, said the team was making efforts to prevent the disease from spreading through casual sex or the sharing of needles, which account for 87 percent of infections.

Injecting drug use is blamed for 65 percent of the total 4,929 HIV/AIDS cases reported in the province from 1989 to September this year.

"If we can reach all junior high students in West Java and give them some understanding about the risks of casual sex and drugs, that would cover 90 percent of early prevention of HIV/AIDS infection," Teddy said during commemorations Tuesday for World AIDS Day at the hospital.

He said a group from Padjadjaran University's School of Medicine and Hasan Sadikin, supported by the West Java HIV/AIDS Prevention Commission (KPA), had spearheaded a module for sex and drugs education for junior high students.

He added that based on various findings in the field, casual sex and drug use were rife among teenagers, particularly those in junior high.

Teddy said that to prove the West Java provincial administration's commitment to addressing the issue, his team would conduct research on the behavior of drug users and those engaging in promiscuous sexual behavior, to determine the age trend as part of a wider mission to lobby the government to include sex and drugs education in the junior high curriculum.

"We must focus more on people in the low-risk group who could be included in the high-risk group, because we notice an increasing trend in injecting drug users and unprotected sexual relationships, which are the main means of spreading HIV/AIDS in West Java," Teddy said.

West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan said HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation should be carried out in an extensive manner.

"We support efforts to prevent and curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in a communal way among the people," he said.

Data from the West Java KPA shows the number of people living with HIV/AIDS under the age of 29 was 3,808, or 77 percent of all HIV/AIDS cases in the province.

Most of the testimonies obtained by anti-AIDS activists indicated these people had contracted the virus by sharing needles and engaging in casual sex since junior high school.

A random survey conducted last year by the 25 messenger anti-AIDS group in West Java showed 56 percent of respondents aged between 15 and 24 admitted to having engaged at least once in premarital sex with their partners, friends or sex workers.

World AIDS Day, which falls every Dec. 1, was commemorated by NGOs, students, volunteers from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and other groups across the country on Tuesday.

In Semarang, Central Java, students from the state junior high school No. 2 and state vocational school No. 7 commemorated World AIDS Day at various places across the city.

The junior high students distributed flowers to passersby at the entrance to the Diponegoro University campus in Tembalang, while the vocational school students carried posters and a banner containing the signatures of petitioners against HIV/AIDS, before marching to the Simpang Lima intersection in the heart of the city.

In Denpasar, Bali, traditional market traders joined in a mass campaign to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS.