HIV/AIDS: The enemy is winning.

WE have not written about HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea for some time.

The news is hardly encouraging.

The pandemic has not disappeared, nor sadly, even lessened.

With all the inevitability of a treadmill, infection and death figures both continue to rise.

Nor has there been any marked improvement in the recording of rural infection and death rates.

We do not minimize the extraordinary difficulty of obtaining these figures. It is almost as if every obstacle possible has been marshaled to stymie real progress on this front.

The country's topography, the thousands of isolated villages and hamlets, the scant medical services outside of provincial headquarters, the lack of trained medical staff, the uneven distribution of money to fight this disease - all of these combined add up to a daunting task.

Yet those rural figures are a must if we are to understand the distribution patterns of this illness.

And they will define the future nature and extent of our response to this disease, and determine the extent of the problems of stigmatization, and the areas in which it is most pronounced.

Without a more accurate assessment of the spread of this illness, we cannot accurately plan our response.
We do not know whether the cost to PNG will be in the hundreds of thousands, or the tens of millions.

Those overseas specialists who are expert in recording the decimation caused by HIV/AIDS have consistently warned of the devastation that will ensue if we fail to control this disease.

We have been told that we can expect the obliteration of the bulk of our work force, a fall in the standard of living of apocalyptic proportions, near-total social and economic disruption, and political chaos.

How have we as a nation responded to this enormous challenge?

There have been many determined attempts to attack the problem.

Some have been initiatives at the highest level - government to government consultations, the injecting of vast sums of money into campaigns to stamp out the illness, and the arrival of experts in the subject from overseas.

The use of condoms and a faithful attitude towards one's sexual partner have been given equal priority.

High risk groups in the community - defence personnel, policemen, sex industry workers and others - have been urged to be especially careful in engaging in casual sex with partners whose sexual history is unknown.

Our Government has been accused of an initially slow reaction to HIV/AIDS, but today it appears to be more attuned to the urgency of the situation.

Many organizations have been founded to assist HIV and AIDS sufferers, their families and relatives. Churches have joined the fight, and private employers have also responded to the challenge.

Yet the infection and death rates rise inexorably, and if they can be regarded as accurate, not only rise but double and treble.

Yesterday we read of the latest figures from Mendi and Tari hospitals in the Southern Highlands province.
In 2003, 44 cases were reported in those two centres.

Within a year, in 2004, that figure had reached 66.

In the first three months of 2005, the figure has already reached 56, suggesting that the total for this year could be as high as 200.

By extension to the rest of PNG, that would represent a rate of increase that could have the most disastrous effects on our whole community.

And we should be mindful that the Southern Highlands province has not to date been recording the highest figures of HIV/AIDS infections in PNG.

That dubious honour goes to the National Capital District closely followed by the Western Highlands province.
There is no simple answer to this threat.

It can only be lessened and hopefully eliminated by a co-ordinated campaign that involves the whole community.

And that in turn demands that traditional clan and tribal attitudes towards sexual matters must be amended; the dreadful stigmatization of innocent victims must be halted, and the younger generation must be made to realize that they will have no future if HIV/AIDS is not defeated.

Daunting tasks.

But the alternative - a nation crippled, its people barely surviving - is intolerable.