Pastor gives AIDS warning to students

LATEST statistics have shown that in every six seconds, four people are being infected by the HIV/AIDS virus in the world, the Western Highlands provincial AIDS council revealed last Friday.
Pastor Apollos Yimbak, the care and counselling coordinator from the provincial AIDS council also revealed that of those being infected, youths had the highest rate of contracting the virus.
He was speaking during the graduation of 26 youths from various church groups who undertook a HIV/AIDS youth fear education programme conducted by the Baptist Union of PNG.
According to Pr Yimbak, youths were more exposed to the HIV because they were more active.
He said that if a young man and a 50-year-old man were to run a race, the person most likely to win would be the younger because he was stronger and active.
Therefore, he said, youths were more vulnerable to HIV as they were “faster” and congratulated the youths for undertaking the programme as they were in a better position to carry out awareness through peer education.
Mr Yimbak challenged the youths to work in partnership and use the skills they learnt as soon as possible.
“You are young and strong, you can change the society we live in today,” he said.
He said the province had the highest record of cases outside of Port Moresby and needed youths to carry out awareness programmes.
He told them also to not speak idioms anymore, but get straight to the point.
“If you want to say sex or any other term, say it, there is no time to beat around the bush anymore,” Pr Yimbak said He said the PAC would work closely with such programmes run by non-governmental organisations to minimise the rate of the virus spreading.