An Alarming Decline

The World Bank puts the infection rate in Papua New Guinea at 50,000. About 220 new HIV cases are reported every month, according to Dr. Banare Bun of the Parliamentary HIV/AIDS Committee.

And University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) academic Professor Mathias Sapuri says the nation's largest hospital, the state-owned Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH), lacks contemporary antiretroviral drugs for its staff and did not give protective gloves to its workers, especially nurses. He confirmed the findings of a study published in a recent issue of Emergency Medicine Australasia, that 18 percent of the PMGH emergency department's patients were HIV positive. Of that, 53 percent were male and 47 percent female.

"The results are alarming. That shows that nearly one in five patients were HIV positive. Currently, it is said that 2 percent of our (PNG) population is HIV positive, but this shows that the prevalence rate is much higher in the community," Sapuri told the Post Courier newspaper.

The recent study was conducted by Dr. Chris Curry, an Australian emergency physician and a visiting professor in emergency medicine at the UPNG, and physicians and academics from Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. Dr. Curry and his colleagues undertook opportunistic testing of 300 serum samples collected at the hospital's emergency department. The prevalence of HIV in this group was found to be 18 percent. The diseases observed in association with HIV seropositivity included respiratory illnesses, particularly TB, diarrhea and oral thrush.

"Our findings show that PNG has entered an accelerated phase of HIV transmission," Dr. Curry says.

UNAIDS Director General Dr. Peter Piot concurs, saying "it is one country, I think, that is really getting out of hand and it is the one that could have an African type of epidemic."

PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare also highlighted the grave situation at PMGH when he told Parliament in August that the HIV/AIDS epidemic was currently the leading cause of admissions and deaths in the hospital.

He admitted PNG leaders' continued denial of the virus' presence and deadly effects was another reason behind its spread and said about 1 percent of the country's 5.5 million people were infected with the virus. Somare said his government recognized the seriousness of the situation since the detection of the first HIV/AIDS case in 1987, citing a long list of legislation and policy decisions that have been introduced since.

But it remains non-government organizations that are really taking the lead in raising awareness of HIV/AIDS. One Papua New Guinea activist and HIV-positive woman, Helen Berem, is leading by example. She is expecting her first child and with other regional advocates, has been talking publicly about the rights of HIV-positive people in the community, including the right to raise children.