AIDS cases in Indonesia estimated at 200,000

Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA News) - The National AIDS Commission (KPN) estimated there are 200,000 cases in Indonesia, much higher than its official record of 11,141, KPN Secretary Dr Nafsiah Mboi said.

"There are 6,066 HIV cases in Indonesia, but the KPN estimated the number at 20,000," Mboi said here on Monday. She was speaking at the opening of a regional meeting held to formulate efforts to handle HIV/AIDS cases in Bali, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

She said that if no preventive measure was taken, the number of AIDS/HIVE cases in Indonesia would rise to two million by 2020.

ANTARA quoting Dr Nafsiah Mboi as saying in Makassar last month that up to March 2008, the number of HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia had been recorded at 17,998, and about 10 percent of them are HIV carriers while the remaining 90 percent are people on the verge of developing full-blown AIDS.

The KPA`s figures are on detected carriers and based on medical reports on people who underwent medical examinations. The real number of HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia is believed to be much higher.

According to Coordinating Minister for People`s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, the number of HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia had continued to increase.

He said the disease was estimated to infect 400,000 and kill 100,000 people in 2010.

"Without adequate intervention, the virus will by 2015 have infected one million people, killed 350,000 and infected 38,500 children," he said.
(*)

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Bird flu cases in Indonesia down, health minister says

Medan (ANTARA News) - Minister of Healthy Siti Fadilah Supari said that in the last 6 months the number of cases of bir dflu on human beings in Indonesia had declined significantly.

In the beginning of the second semester of 2008 the number of the bir dflu cases on human beings had dropped, and the number has even reached the lowest compared to those in 2005, 2006 and 2007, she said in the company of Head of the North Sumatra Health Agency dr Chandra Syafei Sp.OG and member of the North Sumatra Regional Representatives Council (DPD) Parlindungan Purba upon arrival at Medan`s Polonia airport on Wednesday.

The minister said that the main cause of the decline in the bird flu cases on human beings is the fact that people have now become increasingly aware that one should do something as soon as he or she found out that he or she had the symptoms of being affected with this fatal virus.

At present each regional administration has a guidebook on bird flu for distribution to all layers of the society.

"Thank God we already have a handbook on bird flu, and we also have the support from some other countries, including Australia, Germany, India, and China," she said.

The minister also said that as the result of foreign media reports in 2006 that bird flu in Indonesia had already been transmitted from people to people after a whole family in Karo Regency, North Sumatra, had been affected by the bird flu virus, Indonesia had been avoided by the international community.

At that time seven of a family of eight died of the disease, but the only survivor, Jones Ginting, was cured and checked out of hospital, she added. (*)

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