By ANTHONY KAYBING
MEMBERS of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) have been challenged to avert the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
They were to give all that they could offer as a complementary obligation in setting their development priorities for their respective ministries and constituency as part of the region’s stance against the deadly virus.
The challenge came from Dr Benedict Pisi, member for Ioro and deputy chairman of the Bougainville parliamentary select committee on HIV/AIDS as he presented the committees’ status report at the December parliamentary sitting of the ABG last year.
There are at present 74 reported HIV/AIDS cases in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, but according to the report, the prevalence rate amongst the general population is unknown.
The report showed that a majority of pregnant mothers were liable to contract the virus and their unborn babies were also vulnerable.
As the report was compiled from one testing site, which is the Buka General Hospital, other centres in the region were not included and that reflects a major problem in ascertaining the exact number of those infected.
The report also outlined the need for an urgent blood testing survey of the general population.
Dr Pisi said that since the conception of the committee, they had proposed intervention strategies to the ABG to strengthen the region’s response to HIV/AIDS.
The committee has been lobbying for the establishment of an ABG Ministry for National Disaster and Emergency to help in times of distress as well as to combat the AIDS virus and its socio-economic impacts.
The committee also proposed that the ABG commit itself to cost sharing with donor and partner agencies involved in AIDS intervention programmes for strengthening and capacity- building in a direct approach to the epidemic.
Capacity building will include strengthening of vocational training and the development of life skills training for youths and women.
In his closing remarks to the house of assembly, Dr Pisi told the members of the House of Representatives that the report called for the consolidation of everyone’s efforts with a necessary policy and legislative challenges to face the AIDS epidemic.