ENB AIDS Council notes increase in cases

PEOPLE in East New Britain have been urged to undertake voluntary HIV/AIDS counselling and testing because risky sexual behaviour was being practised.
Provincial AIDS co-ordinator Beverly Akuila said statistics revealed that ENB recorded another 41 confirmed new HIV cases last year – 21 men and 20 women.
According to statistics provided by the provincial AIDS office, the same number of new HIV cases was recorded in 2010 with 29 women and 12 men.
Alerting members of the provincial AIDS council during its recent first quarter meeting, acting deputy provincial administrator Levi Mano said the confirmed statistics presented a very alarming situation for the province.
He stressed the need to scale up intervention programmes to aggressively address HIV/AIDS calling on all sectors and every individual in society to work together and take on the fight against HIV/AIDS seriously.
“The trend of new HIV infection in 2011 has changed compared to the previous years – 2009 and 2010 – where new HIV infection was high among our young people aged between 15 and 24.”
Statistics indicated that the 2011 outlook has given another twist in the HIV trend with men aged between 45 and 54 and young women between 15 and 24.
New infection rate among people aged between 35 and 44 have also picked up indicating that there was a trend of risky sexual behaviour among the productive and workforce population.
The statistics showed that last year, Kokopo district has recorded the highest number of new HIV cases – 10 males and seven females.
Rabaul district is next with eight males and seven females.
Gazelle had three females and two males.
Pomio district had three females and one male.
Akuila said these were only the registered cases from people that had come forward for voluntary testing.