Death stalks the land

EVERYONE in Papua New Guinea has the obligation to read and understand the meaning behind comments made at a conference in Japan last Sunday.

The speaker was the head of UNAIDS, the global United Nations body tasked with monitoring and mitigating the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.
And he had a grim message for this country.

Twelve million people could be infected in the Asia Pacific region during the next five years unless the pandemic’s progress can be slowed.

Papua New Guinea is counted as a part of that region, and twelve million people is more than double our total population.

Our country has become a source of great concern to the world body, because it appears that the disease has now spread from the most vulnerable sectors of our society into the general population.

Nearly two percent of Papua New Guineans are currently living with HIV/AIDS.
The UNAIDS official said that PNG is the country in the Asia Pacific region that could have an African-type epidemic.

Referring to PNG, he added: “That’s the one country I would say I think is really getting out of hand.”

We urge our readers to think seriously about the meaning behind those words.
Global experts now see our own country as a likely candidate for the population decimation and the horrendous human misery that has afflicted parts of the African continent for more than two decades.

All the gas pipelines and resource developments, all the village projects and economic assistance from within and outside our country, will mean less than nothing if we do not take immediate steps to deal with what must now be regarded as a dire emergency.

As responsible citizens and residents, we can no longer afford to believe that the problem belongs to others, but has nothing to do with us.

The conspiracy of silence in PNG is all the more pervasive because it is a great deal subtler than in many other countries.

On the surface, PNG has long recognized the fatal nature of this illness, and the terrible impact it can have on our nation.

Educated people shake their heads and verbally acknowledge that HIV/AIDS is indeed a great threat to PNG.

But many of the same people do not translate that acknowledgement into action.
Unprotected sex remains the norm in this country.

We see no evidence that the bulk of Papua New Guineans is taking extra precautions when having sex.

On the contrary, it appears that those who continue to have sex indiscriminately and without any form of protection are regarded as admirable.

The grim truth is that last year, 1.2 million new HIV/AIDS infections were recorded in the Asia Pacific region alone.

The sad procession of young faces in our death notices is a silent testimony to the rapacity of this disease.

Yet relatives and friends of these dead youngsters will strenuously deny that the cause of their deaths was AIDS.

Somehow, we have to personalize this pandemic, so that every Papua New Guinean accepts the responsibility that they will not contract the disease, and that they will not in turn infect others.

We wonder whether the joining of Asia and the Pacific in the one region, for the purposes of charting the spread of this pandemic, may actually work against the people of PNG and the South Pacific.

S E Asia is heavily populated, with many over-populated countries.
Figures that refer to 47,000 new infections last year among children, for example, or 1.5 million children who have lost one or both parents, are so large that may mean little to our own people.

Perhaps UNAIDS should consider establishing an HIV/AIDS regional unit that deals solely with the South Pacific.

It is undeniable that the societies of Asia and our own area are vastly different, and our people respond in markedly different ways to the problems we share with our Asian neighbours.

But however this terrible disease is handled in the future, nothing can detract from the urgent need for each and every Papua New Guinea to recognize HIV/AIDS as a personal threat, and one on track to destroy our country and our people in the immediate future.