Disturbing news for AIDS activists is being reported from a remote province in Indonesia.
Indonesian AIDS Patients Face Microchip Monitoring
Indonesian province plans to tag AIDS patients with microchip monitors
Lawmakers in Indonesia's remote province of Papua have thrown their support behind a controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips — part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease.
Local health workers and AIDS activists called the plan "abhorrent."
"People with AIDS aren't animals; we have to respect their rights," said Tahi Ganyang Butarbutar, a prominent Papuan activist.
Reuters also has the story:
Indonesia's Papua plans to tag AIDS sufferers
Nancy Fee, the UNAIDS country coordinator, said the global body was not aware of any laws or initiatives elsewhere involving HIV/AIDS patients and microchips.Though she has yet to see a copy of the bill, she said she had "grave concerns" about the effect it would have on human rights and public health.
"No one should be subject to unlawful or unnecessary interference of privacy," Fee said, adding that while other countries have been known to be oppressive in trying to tackle AIDS, such policies don't work.
They make people afraid and push the problem further underground, she said.
Tahi Ganyang, the Papuan activist, said the best way to tackle the epidemic was through increased spending on sexual education and condom use.
Al Jazeera has reported on Papua's AIDS crisis:
101 East - Papua's Aids crisis - 6 Nov 08 - Part 1
The Indonesian province of Papua in South-East Asia is largely closed to international media. However it now faces a Hiv/Aids problem so grave it deserves the wider world's attention.
Authorities in the Indonesian capital Jakarta say the infection rate in Papua is 15 times the national average. But field workers say that figure could be closer to 50 times.
Although the Indonesian government say they have the problem under control, it is thought that there are now many more Hiv positive housewives than sex workers.
101 East looks at the looming health crisis in Papua.
101 East - Papua's Aids crisis - 6 Nov 08 - Part 2
The Jakarta Post reports:
Broken equipment halts Papua AIDS program
A program in Papua to prevent HIV-positive pregnant women from passing the virus to their babies has been halted because a device necessary for the treatment is broken. While the program was running at the general hospital in Jayapura, doctors were able to prevent four women with HIV/AIDS from passing the virus to their newborns.
Samuel Baso Maripadang, the head of the voluntary consulting and testing unit in the province, said recently the four babies tested negative for HIV. He said tests on three other babies born to women who took part in the program were inconclusive, and the babies were still being monitored.
The women were administered antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to control the spread of HIV in their bodies, Samuel said. The treatment was found effective, he said, adding, "The four babies are proof."
The treatment requires careful monitoring on the leukocyte content in the women's blood with the help of a device called a CD4 (cluster of differentiation 4). However, the device broke three months ago, forcing the hospital to stop the treatment.
What I also found disturbing were some comments posted to the ABC news article (my bold):
Wow, KittyBaby seems way to irrational. But I can understand what they are saying. "sexually aggressive". They way I understood they story is those who KNOW they have the disease, yet are still having sex with many people, like the prostitutes, are the ones that will be microchipped. Do I really agree with it morally? NO. I also don't agree with prostitution. It is stupid and dangerous. But if there are prostitutes(and they would be considered sexually aggressive) with the disease, and the country IS DOING everything else, then to save lives, maybe it is for the best. They will not be 'branded' for the whole world to see. But maybe if they know they could go to jail for having sex with strangers, they will think twice about it. Micro chipping any one cannot replace education. But to stop such a horrible disease, and start with those who KNOW they are spreading it? Yeah, I think it is ok.
I believe that your right to swing, ends where my nose begins. I don't care what the terminally infected claim their "rights" are. We (Society) has nicely allowed you (the walking plague-bearers) to live amonst us, instead of on a nice island somewhere, left to your fate. They show their gratitude for this boon by knowingly, accidentally, and carelessly infecting us. They won't let us tatoo them, track them, or get rid of them. If most of these diseases were ONLY transmitted through sex, that would be one thing, but we're exposed to their infection in everyday life, with no warning and no protection in so many other settings. It has to stop. I work hard to assure I'm not participating in stupid and risky behavior, yet I'm still exposed through casual contact (XDR-TB) We have got to stop allowing ignorance of the facts, to excuse their behavior; it doesn't work for murder, or any other crime. You have to protect people, or it's going to get violent.
This decision, in a remote place in the world that is currently not on our radar, is dangerous for a host of reasons. To allow those infected with HIV to become monitored criminals, rather than to increase funding for education, prevention and treatment, and to refuse to address the underlying economic and social causes of sexual tourism and prostitution is a dangerously reactionary response to the issue, and could have a ripple effect in other poor areas of the world which are currently struggling to combat the pandemic. This is complicated by the fact that monies from PEPFAR have been attached to abstinence only programs, and have not dealt appropriately with prostitution.
PEPFAR Watch has this information:
CHANGE releases updated policy brief examining prostitution pledge
On September 5, CHANGE released a new policy brief examining the "prostitution pledge" which, despite the efforts of human rights and public health advocates, remains embedded in U.S. global HIV/AIDS policy today. From a human rights and public health perspective, the prostitution pledge is a failed policy. Recent court rulings raise significant doubts about the pledge’s constitutionality, and evidence demonstrates the pledge’s harmful impact on HIV prevention efforts among sex workers.
and a link to this article:
Perpetuating the Prostitution Pledge: Allegiance to Failure
In yet another example of the Bush Administration's assault on public health and human rights using the unwieldy club of "morality," it appears that the prostitution pledge will remain embedded in the forehead of U.S. global AIDS policy for several years, unless advocates can muster enough support to pluck it out.
Common sense, respect for human rights, and the urgency of HIV prevention all cry out for an end to the pledge, which requires organizations receiving U.S. global AIDS funds to have a policy explicitly opposing the practice of prostitution. This policy must apply to all the organization's activities - even those funded by other donors.
The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) just released our policy brief that highlights the many legal, ethical, and practical alarm bells raised by the pledge. Based largely on interviews with people on the frontlines of HIV prevention among sex workers, the brief looks at the pledge's impact on life-saving programs on the ground.
What it reveals is a dismal picture: effective programs suddenly cut off from funding, groups self-censoring messages on sex worker rights, and sex workers with nowhere to go for support or condom supplies.
The good news is that for many U.S.-based organizations, the pledge no longer applies. It occurred to some people, including judges in two district courts, that compelling U.S. organizations to spout the government line with money they raise from other sources runs into a little problem called the First Amendment. The Administration is still trying to do an end run around the rulings, but advocates hope that the pledge will soon be history for the large collection of U.S. plaintiffs. (For more on court rulings against the pledge, visit this page.)
But that won't help international organizations overseas.
I hope that this will alert AIDS activists here, and we should continue to monitor the changes promised by the incoming Obama administration.