AIDS Prevention Should Target Foreigners Says Health Chief

June 01, 2011

DENPASAR

Health officials have announced that foreigners as well as locals in Bali need to be aware of the risk of HIV-AIDS, and have revealed that as of March there were known to be 29 foreign citizens suffering from the disease in Bali.

Speaking last weekend, the head of the Bali Provincial Health Office Dr Nyoman Suteja said that data about foreign patients was collected alongside that for Indonesian citizens.

He said that amongst the HIV-positive foreigners in Bali as of March 2011 there were six Dutch citizens, five Americans and four East Timorese. There were also smaller numbers of HIV-positive French, Italians, Canadians, Swiss, Australians, Japanese, Spanish and Irish.

Suteja said that historically a total of 4314 HIV-AIDS cases had been recorded in bali, and added that foreigners should not be ignored in prevention programs.

He said that Bali as a province ranked fifth highest nationally for incidence of the disease, after West Java, East Java, Papua and Jakarta, but that per head of population Bali had the second highest levels of HIV-AIDS after Papua.


(x the Bali Times)