AIDS destruction

Infection could rise to 200,000 per year
Workforce could be reduced by 34%
Economic welfare indictors could fall by 48%

PAPUA New Guinea’s HIV/AIDS epidemic could rival the AIDS catastrophes in Africa’s worst-affected nations unless immediate, large-scale action is taken by the international community, the Australian Red Cross has warned.

“Under an absolute worst-case scenario, experts warn that an unfettered epidemic in PNG could claim up to 120,000 lives per year,” the organisation’s chief executive officer Robert Tickner said in a statement yesterday.

“Such a scenario would have catastrophic human and economic ramifications on the country and on the Asia-Pacific region as a whole,” the AAP reported Tickner as saying.

A report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) also gave a similar warning.
Written by ADB economist Ajay Tandon, the report says Papua New Guinea and Cambodia could go the way of Sub-Saharan Africa due to the potential devastating economic impact of an AIDS epidemic on poor countries.

“Results indicate a negative impact of increasing HIV/AIDS prevalence on health capital and economic growth, one that is particularly worrisome in countries such as Cambodia and Papua New Guinea,” said the report.

Tickner’s warning comes on the occasion of World AIDS Day 2005 which is marked today.
According to the UN and AusAID, HIV prevalence in PNG is up to two per cent of the adult population, with the number of people infected each year rising by 15 to 30 per cent since 1997.

The United Nations estimates 7.4 per cent of the adult population of Sub-Saharan
Africa - 25.4 million people - are living with HIV.

The similarity of sexual behaviour patterns in PNG and Sub-Saharan Africa has raised concerns that the epidemic in this country could reach comparable levels.

“The epidemic is currently driven by commercial and casual sex and is heterosexual in nature,” said Elden Chamberlain, Australian Red Cross HIV/AIDS advisor.

“This makes it all the more difficult to contain as it is not just isolated groups of people who are most vulnerable to infection.”

UN reports indicated Papua New Guineans in their late teens engaged in high levels of sexual activity and alcohol and drug use, Chamberlain said.

Though they showed some awareness of HIV and AIDS, they often struggled to access information on prevention or related services, he said.

If rates of infection continued to rise, PNG’s workforce could be reduced by 34 per cent by 2020, with measures of economic welfare falling between 12 and 48 per cent during that period, Chamberlain said.

A generalised epidemic could lead to large-scale migrations and strains on regional resources as people returned to rural areas for communal support or crossed borders to escape economic deprivation, he said.

Various groups involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS will stage various activities throughout the country today to commemorate World AIDS Day.