Health Minister: Up to 30 Percent Have HIV Infection in Remote Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea has one the highest rates of HIV in Asia -- 1-3 percent nationally -- and some areas have HIV rates of up to 30 percent, Health Minister Peter Barter told the World Health Organization's annual Asia-Pacific conference meeting in New Zealand on Monday.

"We've had up to 30 percent results HIV-positive" from hospital pathology reports in the western and southern parts of Enga, said Barter. "It was a shock to me" such hot-spots existed, he acknowledged on the conference sidelines.

At Enga's Porgera gold mine, a partnership of PNG and the Canadian firm Placer Dome, "We have recorded 12 percent of our work force is HIV-positive, and in other areas of Papua New Guinea it goes as high as 15 percent," said Barter. "That is a confirmed figure."

In June, UNAIDS reported PNG had an adult HIV infection rate of 1.8 percent and lacked the domestic political motivation to address its epidemic.

Barter conceded PNG officials have been slow to cope with HIV but that the nation now has a strategic HIV plan. "Previously, we didn't really have a plan. Now, at least we have a roadmap," he said. "We have to do something very fast." Coordination, not lack of money, is part of the problem, said Barter.

Richard Nesbit, WHO's acting director for the Western Pacific, said, "The HIV epidemic continues to take a great toll on our region, with nearly 600 new cases and 200 deaths every day."

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