HIV/AIDS infections remain high

HIV/Aids remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality globally.
It is silently killing far more people than the Coronavirus and other curable diseases.
It was projected that around 37.7 million people were living with HIV worldwide in 2020, while an estimated 1.8 million new infections occurred the same year.
Approximately 5.2 million people were living with HIV in the Asia and Pacific, which is the third highest in the world after the two African regions, the Western and Eastern Africa.
The virus continues to be a major public health problem in PNG.
Around 48,000 people were estimated to be living with HIV in PNG in 2020, when official data was obtainable.
Of that massive figure, 59 per cent are women of 15 years and older and 7 per cent of children less than 14 years.
Despite having made significant progress in increasing access to life-saving antiretroviral (ART) therapy and HIV prevention interventions, transmission still remains high in many sub-populations and geographic locations.
The Government through the Department of Health has exhausted millions of kina to end the pandemic but it has widespread since its entry in 1987.
It is equally a costly and frightening issue and must be eliminated.
The safety of the general constituents is more critical than those who have acquired the sickness through their own wrongdoings.
A high incidence of sexual aggression, violence against women, the impact of alcohol on sexual behaviour and commercial sex are just some of the reasons for the high level of HIV infections in the country.
But if the Department of Health maintains the supply of condoms then it is indirectly encouraging people to have more sex for pleasure and gain, increasing the adultery and related social issues.
Likewise, if ART doses are persistently supplied then those who are infected will still remain healthy, unnoticed like ordinary people and continue to transmit the virus.

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