Figures don't lie... (cont)

How many HIV-infected people are there in Indonesia? The general consensus among the experts is around 300,000. I have noted before that Malaysia, with one tenth of the population of Indonesia, had identified around 70,000 cases of HIV infection. It thus seems reasonable to guess (as a non-expert) that Indonesia had at least 350,000 cases.

Now we have another expert, our friend Dr. Ronald Jonathan, quoted suggesting that by next year, there will be five million (yes, six zeros!) cases by next year, in only 300 of the almost 500 districts in Indonesia (Five million HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia by 2010). Interestingly, only an English-language version of the report appears on the Antara web site.

I've just talked to Dr. Ronald. He tells me that he was presenting figures of worst-case scenarios from several years back. He was not at the time aware that the Antara reporter was present, but when he was later interviewed, he corrected the reporter's mis-impression, and requested that it not be published. Seems Antara ignored this, and the report was picked up and published in the Jakarta Post yesterday.

On the other hand, at a meeting a few days back, I heard that a new 'official' estimate is being prepared, which may end up suggesting even an even lower figure than the 300,000. Sadly, the surveillance efforts here are very limited, very infrequent, and with questionable samples. So the fact is that we have little idea if it's 200,000 or two million.

Babé