THE government has been concentrating more on the Covid-19 pandemic that it has neglected other serious diseases like HIV/AIDS, resulting in the increase of many new HIV cases in the country.
HIV/AIDS is also recognized as a cross-cutting issue which cuts across all sectors affecting the social, economic, political and development context of PNG. It is the single largest disease affecting the reproductive age groups of adults between the ages of 15 to 19 years old and includes those currently attending the high schools, universities and technical colleges.
What is experienced now is that there is Lack of funding which has resulted in the inconsistency of supply of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) with low coverage of condom prevention interventions and has led to the significant increase in the number of People Living with HIV (PLWHIV) and STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) cases.
Improvements in the ART coverage in 2020 have immensely led to AIDS-related death slowly declining while the number of PLWHIV being kept alive is slowly increasing. With the increase in the number of people infected and living with HIV, it is estimated that two people die every day.
According to HIV snapshot 2020, the estimated number of new infections has increased from 2,600 in 2010 to 3,300 in 2020 (27%), bringing the total number of people living with HIV to an estimate 52,000.
“There are approximately nine new infections per day and out of the nine, five are women and two out of the five women are young girls,” Manager for Advocacy and Social Mobilization Division, Valentine Tangoh said.
According to 2020 HIV/AIDS report, HIV is present in all provinces, but at increased levels in eight ‘high-burden’ provinces, the National Capital District, Enga, Jiwaka, Simbu, Western Highlands, Southern Highlands, Morobe and Madang Provinces.
Mr. Tangoh added that HIV/AIDS is highly concentrated in certain parts of PNG, in the Highlands region, National Capital District and Morobe province. According to statistics provided by the HIV/AIDS factsheet 2020, PNG is the third country in the world with highest ART drug resistance at 18 per cent and has the highest STI prevalence in the region.
He has called on the government to make funds available for the National Aids Council Secretariat (NACS) so that they can fund more community projects and conduct HIV/AIDS awareness to communities to help stop the spread of the disease.
Mr. Tangoh’s call must not fall on deaf years and it is incumbent on the government to really resource the NACS to carry out its mandate task. Stop concentrating too much on Covid-19 and give equal attention to the glaring HIV/AIDS issue we have at hand.