HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign

During last night's Bukan Empat Mata talk show on Trans7 TV, presenter and social activist Dr. Luna Kamal shared about the difficulties she encountered in campaigning HIV/AIDS awareness to the public.

She said that when she talked to some men and women about the importance of using Condoms for men who make love to prostitutes, one woman has asked her why is she promoting  free sex.

It seems that the Ministry of Education is also having difficulty  in campaigning HIV/ AIDS awareness to school students.  This can be seen from its refusal to provide special lesson about HIV/AIDS at schools.

Kompas quoted the Minister of Education M. Nuh as saying that information about HIV/AIDS shall not be given in special lesson at schools but will instead be integrated into various lessons e.g Religion, Biology, Sociology etc.

Considering that HIV/AIDS is an incurable and very contagious decease, and the number of people infected  in Indonesia is growing rapidly, I hope that the government would drastically increase HIV/AIDS awareness campaign to the public, especially school students.    

Logo :  Courtesy of Wikipedia.

World Aids Day 2010

Logo :  Courtesy of Altius Directory

The Virginity Survey

According to recent survey by the National Family Planning Coordination Agency (BKKBN), 51% of school girls in Jakarta and surrounding towns of Bogor, Tangerang and Depok, have experienced premarital sex, there fore not Virgin..

According to TvOne, the survey shows similar results in other cities i.e. Surabaya 54%, Medan 52%, Bandung 47% and Yogjakarta 37%.
 
The survey also show an estimate of 2,4 million persons conducted abortions every year, 800 thousands of them are teenagers. 

Further, until June 2010 there were 21,770 cases of AIDS, and 47,157 HIV Positive, 48.1% among people between 20-29 years old, and 30.9% between 30-39 years old.

Furthermore, the survey also shows that 78% of the 3,2 million Drug Addicts are teenagers.

Considering the above, I hope that school students would be provided with information about Sex and its consequences.

Photo :  Courtesy of Okezone.

HIV/AIDS Red Alert in West Java

West Java is one of the two Provinces (beside Banten) which have land boundaries with Jakarta, and is famous among others for its beautiful landscape and women.

Many of its big towns are located not far from Jakarta, for example Bogor (60Km) and Bandung (180 Km), and Puncak mountain resort (90 Km) therefore many citizens of Jakarta usually go there during weekends & holidays. This brought positive effect i.e. financial income and negative effects e.g HIV/AIDS to the Province.

The Jakarta Post reported that the Province’s Governor Ahmad Heryawan has just declared HIV/AIDS State of Emergency in the province. The reason is because according to the Province’s HIV/AIDS Commission (KPAD) as of March 2009 there were 2,682 AIDS cases & 1,838 HIV cases. 85 percent, or 3,838 people, living with HIV/AIDS were between the age of 15 and 49 years, meaning that the epidemic would further strain economic and social ties among the community. What is shocking is that the report also mentioned that the number of Housewives living with HIV/AIDS i.e 285, are higher than that of Prostitutes i.e 259. The decease was transmitted from one person to another through Unsafe Sex (without Condoms) and exchange of Needles for injecting Drugs.
Emergency Status was supported by the Chairperson of the National AIDS Commission Nafsiah Mboi.

Further, The Jakarta Globe quoted the head of KPAD Alma Lucyanti as saying that West Java only held the record as the province with the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases because it has the proper public awareness and early detection system to diagnose the cases. Due to which fact, KPAD will pay more attention in providing information about Safe Sex to housewives.

The HIV/AIDS State of Emergency declaration in West Java would make citizens of the province and Jakarta more aware about the decease, avoid sexual intercourse with more than one partner, and/or avoid exchange of needles for injecting Drugs.