Lack of HIV and AIDs awareness in PNG

Transcript

A healthcare provider in Papua New Guinea says the number of people living with HIV is stable, but there is still a lack of education on the virus. 

Appropiate Technology, or AT Projects, helps people in the Highlands access treatment for the virus and recieve adequate healthcare to deal with AIDS.

AT Projects' co-director Steve Layton told Lucy Smith about the problems faced by people living with HIV and AIDS in rural areas. 

STEVE LAYTON: The further you go out into the rural areas of the country then yes - people don't necessarily know what HIV/AIDS is. There's been a hell of a lot of awareness in PNG and the assumption is that everyone knows what HIV is. I don't think that's true. A lot of people have a very good idea, and some people have a very vague idea of what it is. 

LUCY SMITH: I was speaking to Steve Kraus who's from the UN AIDS program in Asia and the Pacific and he was saying in Papua New Guinea rates are falling Do you agree that they are falling? 

SL: Personally I don't believe that, I don't necessarily believe they are climbing - I think it's very difficult to prove that. No one in PNG really has all those statistics, it's all based out on people's perceptions out in the field. And our perception has to be maybe, just maybe it's stablising but we know for example, the number of people being tested is greatly reduced now. Last year there was a big budget cut and the funding for testing was not the same. 

LS: What do you think the main reason is for HIV/AIDS still being an issue in Papua New Guinea? 

SL:  What you have here is quite a promiscuous society. If you have a village dance, in the Highlands they're called 6-to-6 because you literally start at 6pm and go to 6pm the next day. There is alcohol, there is marijuana. And I think that if a young woman was to say to a young man 'lets go and have sex behind the 6 to 6 stand' - I don't think young men think twice. They're not thinking 'does this woman have HIV/AIDS' I think we have quite a promiscuous society. The churches are trying to convince people to have safe sex or no sex at all but I don't think that message is getting across, in my experience. 

LS: Is it an issue of a lack of funding to be able to support initiatives that would educate people? 

SL: It still takes a very long time for people to come to the centre and say 'I've got a problem here. I need some assistance'  and then our volunteers will take them off and get them tested. Last year because there was a change in Australian Aid - we were fully funded for about 5-6 years, [but] last year with the changes that went on we received a 50 percent budget cut. We went from 10 centres to 7. We were able to do some cost savings and invest some of our own money, but we went from 10 to 7. We're getting told next year it's highly unlikely we're going to get any funding at all. So clearly there is a lack of overall funding from these programmes and the national government is not in a position to pick them up. So I'm not quite clear what we're going do next year, we're looking for other funders - whether we get them or not? I don't know. The dilemma for us is if we don't get those funders, not only do we not support the 50 plus volunteers, we're going to have 230 people with full blown AIDS, with nowhere to go.