tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74881098691790871342012-01-17T15:12:02.825+07:00Adventures supporting mostly young people living with HIV around IndonesiaBabéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.comBlogger1291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-6681975450916304932011-08-03T13:04:00.000+07:002011-08-03T13:04:38.289+07:00

Who should be responsible for prisoners with HIV and/or TB, or with drug use problems, after their release from prison? That question has resulted in some heated discussions among my colleagues. One makes the reasonable point that released prisoners are no longer the concern of the corrections service. After release, they are the same as any other members of the community, and should therefore be

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-8677766211623152252011-07-31T09:52:00.001+07:002011-07-31T09:53:26.234+07:00

Are we winning the 'war on drugs'? "New HIV infections among drug addicts [in Indonesia] have dropped significantly in recent years," Ibu Nafsiah (National AIDS Commission secretary) is quoted as saying in an article (Indonesia's Uphill Fight Against Aids) in the Jakarta Globe. Ibu Naf partly puts this down to the success of the authorities in cracking down on heroin use, as well as the

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-68625407696704055402011-07-30T06:47:00.000+07:002011-07-30T06:47:21.057+07:00

Unusually, the Jakarta Post on Wednesday published an opinion article on its front page. Headlined "Taking charge in a transition", it was by Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Managing Director of the World Bank Group and a former finance minister of Indonesia. For some reason (probably copywrong), this article is not accessible on the Post's web site, but I managed to find it at its original location,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-27117934155882975692011-07-25T14:56:00.000+07:002011-07-25T14:56:42.643+07:00

Recent research among inmates in Indonesian prisons has raised a worrying red flag. While HIV prevalence among male inmates was a little over 1%, the figure was 6% among female inmates. The report does not attempt to explain this difference, although it should be noted that random selection of study prisons turned out not to include any of the narcotics prisons, where the rate among men would be

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-24871071606901107262009-12-20T13:29:00.001+07:002009-12-20T13:30:28.134+07:00

Some good news for those in prison. The Jakarta Post reports on the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) by the Minister of Justice/Human Rights and the Minister of Health. This makes prison inmates eligible for the government-run health insurance scheme for poor people, known as Jamkesmas. In the past, it has frequently been difficult for prison staff to arrange free health care for

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-71442424012582655102009-12-12T06:42:00.000+07:002009-12-12T06:42:30.382+07:00

A disturbing interview on NPR yesterday (Questions On Public-Private Prisons For Immigrants) confirmed my impression that the prison system in Indonesia could teach some others a thing or two. We heard about inhumane treatment in a prison in Texas (A Death in Texas). This prison in a remote part of the USA, with 3,700 inmates, has no infirmary! An epileptic prisoner was denied his medication, and

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-39708722507807170142009-12-11T09:15:00.000+07:002009-12-11T09:15:30.490+07:00

Although I've been using the internet since 1995, I'm really not into social networking. Perhaps because I'm basically anti-social? I've never been good at old-fashioned chatting, let alone chatting on the internet. I've on occasion set up both Yahoo Messenger and Facebook accounts, but shut them down within minutes. And tweeting? They're all just not me! But there's no doubt that Indonesians

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-62305775749987623562009-12-09T13:14:00.000+07:002009-12-09T13:14:06.644+07:00

It's not only acronyms that lose their meaning. Take 'stigma and discrimination'. 'We' often refer to these without really thinking about what they really mean. I remember back in 1996, when we were planning the first national Candlelight Memorial, we prepared a flier referring to the Indonesian term 'diskriminasi'. I guess that even if you don't understand Indonesian, you can guess what that

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-66631945720241103672009-12-06T10:11:00.000+07:002009-12-06T10:11:30.153+07:00

"Don't worry about injecting drug use here. Indonesian kids wouldn't do that; they're good kids. And anyway, they're scared of needles." So went the conventional wisdom in the mid 90's, when I was working with the Pelita Ilmu Foundation. Pelita Ilmu started life doing outreach to schools, so they should know, right? As we all now know, wrong! And I should have known better. When I used to hang

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-3749793970966141042009-12-02T16:01:00.000+07:002009-12-02T16:01:39.800+07:00

It was back in September 1995 that I first learned that condoms have pores. The report in the Republika daily, that condoms have holes 1/10 micron in diameter (whereas HIV is only 1/600 micron) must be correct because it was written by a professor: Prof. DR H. Dadang Hawari. Even more so, since the byline noted that the article was a result of cooperation between the daily and the Indonesian

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-45226432180755855462009-11-29T09:15:00.000+07:002009-11-29T09:15:04.414+07:00

Pace ASEAN, I've always found the idea that there is some essential similarity between the Khmer and the Acehnese, or between the Karen and the Moro, somewhat questionable. It's like the concept of 'Asian values', which is often adduced but rarely defined. And if there is really little in common between all of the countries of Southeast Asia, how much less among the Asia-Pacific? I therefore

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-35940711993094162472009-11-28T14:31:00.000+07:002009-11-28T14:31:02.141+07:00

...and trust in God? As I've noted before, we're all waiting (with more or less patience) for a cure. But is that realistic? We're often told that Islam teaches that God will provide a cure for any sickness that He inflicts upon us. Leaving open the question of why He would so inflict us, I think this statement requires a large dose of faith. There's a whole bunch of 'old' conditions for which

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-75048055845328122922009-11-27T09:00:00.000+07:002009-11-27T09:00:08.952+07:00

When I was a lad attending Tech College in Chelmsford, in Essex in eastern England, I lodged at a hostel right next to a church. I still remember how my Sunday morning hung-over sleep was interrupted by the peel of the bells from the church, calling the faithful to prayer. I was reminded of that as I was on my morning walk today, this time around the Lubang Buaya monument to the generals slain in

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-6630262591265817102009-11-26T16:52:00.000+07:002009-11-26T16:52:32.500+07:00

I'm sure we all frequently use acronyms and abbreviations without thought as to their underlying meaning. One example that always sticks in my craw is 'WTS' (wanita tunasusila, or women without morals), a euphemism for sex workers. While some are quite likely 'amoral', no more than members of the general population, and many that I have met are more moral than me (OK, not saying much!). It's an

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-41952434117761381202009-11-21T08:35:00.000+07:002009-11-21T08:35:19.541+07:00

Dr Ronald's report predicting five million cases of HIV infection next year (Figures don't lie... (cont)) referred (as many such reports do) to the iceberg phenomenon. We often used to hear that for every case found, 'the WHO calculated' that there were 100 or 1000 (choose your figure) others that made up the unseen part of the iceberg under the water. I'm doubtful the WHO ever made such an

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17881789086034082275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-83749359610482224932009-11-18T15:01:00.001+07:002009-11-18T15:04:23.562+07:00

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

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-69852525976016927492009-11-15T10:29:00.003+07:002009-11-15T10:39:37.541+07:00

The furore over the appointment of Endang R. Sedyaningsih as Minister of Health seems to have died down a little. I think that to most of us in the AIDS world her appointment is very welcome news. Five years of a xenophobic minister, who declined to talk of harm reduction at a cabinet meeting on AIDS apparently because she didn't know what it was, have done little to enhance the response to HIV

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-26811945875386791192009-11-14T15:33:00.001+07:002009-11-14T15:35:19.043+07:00

I think I've mentioned before that I've been working with the AusAID-funded HIV Cooperation Program for Indonesia (HCPI) on the response to HIV in the prison system in Java and Bali. One focus has been to support the 2005-2009 National Strategy on HIV in Prisons in Indonesia, which (among other elements) called for "Creating peer network as form of support and care for HIV positive among

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-13177174185440959332009-11-13T06:22:00.000+07:002009-11-13T06:23:19.472+07:00

Some of you may be aware that, since 30th September, I've given up full-time work with Spiritia. I'm still doing occasional work as a volunteer, particularly to maintain the web site. I'm also continuing to work for with the AusAID-funded HIV Cooperation Program for Indonesia (HCPI) as a consultant, at least until the end of the year. Hopefully there will opportunities to continue this next

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-89487718665595867042009-11-12T09:27:00.002+07:002009-11-12T17:29:58.106+07:00

Sadly another loss to report, this time not directly caused by HIV. Bob Monkhouse, known to his friends and many, many 'children' as Uncle Bob, died early this week in Bali.Bob had been in Indonesia since at least the mid 1970's. At some stage he opened a bar (I think it was the Pink Panther) in Kuta. I'm sure he'll forgive me for noting that, like many in that situation, he became too fond of

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-71679277670030347722009-06-07T15:38:00.002+07:002009-06-07T15:41:34.679+07:00

Some of you may have followed the story of the young (nursing) mother who was remanded in prison on the charge of defaming a private hospital in the Jakarta area. A test at the hospital lab had indicated she had very low platelets, and as a result she was diagnosed with dengue and was admitted and infused. But the next day, it appeared that her platelets were in fact normal, and the diagnosis was

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-64386140173237287152009-06-06T15:50:00.002+07:002009-06-06T15:58:27.197+07:00

My friend and colleague, Theo Smart, has embarrassed me into returning to this task. Theo edits the HATIP (HIV/AIDS Treatment in Practice) newsletter for NAM (don't ask what that means; it used to be National AIDS Manual, but now like BP it's just an acronym). For several years (almost since its inception) I've been one of the review panel for HATIP, among a very distinguished list of clinicians,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-86949985316584339682009-05-08T17:58:00.004+07:002009-05-08T18:07:52.814+07:00

Yet another sad loss. Yesterday we heard that Indri Morizette had been taken from us. Indri, was one of the most beautiful and talented waria (transsexual) that I have ever met. In April 2002, she co-founded 'Saribattangku', a peer support group for HIV-infected waria in Makassar, South Sulawesi. that quickly became a model for similar groups around the country.We take activists like Indri for

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-83900303092838043682009-04-12T15:45:00.002+07:002009-04-12T15:50:50.147+07:00

So how can we do a better job of getting people onto life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) sooner, before they fall sick, and risk death as a result? I do have one or two ideas, Tom, if not solutions.Clearly the first challenge is to identify people infected with HIV earlier. Certainly easier said than done, and as I've discussed before our current 'voluntary counselling and testing (VCT)'

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-46073033510524435662009-04-10T14:28:00.000+07:002009-04-10T14:31:14.469+07:00

Surprise, surprise! As I forecast. there's confusion over where to put the drug users 'sentenced' to rehab. The Department of Social Affairs has admitted that they are totally unprepared to accept even a small proportion of them. They have only 33 such centres on their books, with total capacity for 1000 addicts, Their spokesperson admits that there may be others that don't "meet our minimum

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-63255956426528871612009-04-09T16:25:00.002+07:002009-04-09T16:31:21.881+07:00

Sadly, another heavy loss this week. Fredy Malik, Indonesian Drug User Activist since 2002, died of AIDS. I did not know him well, but it is clear that he had played a crucial role in the development of harm reduction in Indonesia, in Asia, and probably more widely. It is due to people like Fredy that Indonesia is among the leaders in this field.James Blogg from the AusAID-funded HIV Cooperation

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-77448504697967440622009-04-06T15:16:00.000+07:002009-04-06T15:21:28.206+07:00

Mental hospitals are on standby! Emergency cases expected! No, not an explosion of drug use, or even an emptying of the prisons as a result of the Supreme Court decision that convicted drug users should not be incarcerated in prison, just incarcerated in (probably less humane) 'rehab centres' (see Iron bars a cage).No, this is for the parliamentary candidates who don't get elected. Although some

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-26291283085961441852009-03-27T20:01:00.000+07:002009-03-27T20:03:46.748+07:00

She's at it again. Our beloved Minister of Health is now questioning the validity of vaccination for "meningitis, mumps and some other diseases," according to the Jakarta Post (Minister wants to review vaccinations). She is apparently once again accusing foreign drug companies of using Indonesia as a testing ground.The Minister is reported to want scientific proof that immunization against

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-21157458728874042102009-03-26T11:38:00.001+07:002009-03-26T11:40:48.748+07:00

We can now access our Health Minister's statement to the recent meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The achievements she claims are all in the field of supply and demand reduction. Among them, she lists the dubious achievement of a 'slight decline' in drug offence-related cases in 2008 after a massive 300% increase between 2003 and 2008. She does note that "in the area pf demand

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-86119487520520581702009-03-24T07:01:00.001+07:002009-03-24T07:03:06.272+07:00

It's exactly ten years since I wrote my first article in the Jakarta Post about World TB Day - which falls today. I'd been fascinated by TB since I'd first got involved with HIV. It did seem like there was a connection, but I found it difficult to understand. How did TB suddenly become active and cause all the damage? Why do people seem so much more vulnerable to active TB in the first couple of

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-56614721118952688582009-03-23T16:31:00.000+07:002009-03-23T16:33:16.159+07:00

Psychiatrists reject pharmaceutical industy funding! 'Bout time! I heard this quite by chance on NPR news, and googled to get details. Found it The Carlat Psychiatry Blog - "Supporting the search for honesty in medical education." Wow! What a concept!The article, APA Votes to Phase out Industry-Funded CME, gives some the details, although I can't find anything about it on the APA web site - or

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-34454282060012415682009-03-22T11:22:00.000+07:002009-03-22T11:23:38.165+07:00

No more prison for drug users, Supreme Court tells judges - a headline in yesterday's Jakarta Post. The 1997 narcotics law provides for the option of rehabilitation rather than prison for drug addicts, but this sentence is rarely offered.Sounds like good news. But where are the rehab centres for the 100,000 or so drug addicts currently incarcerated? And who will pay? If history is a guide, there

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-46741190057989096332009-03-21T14:17:00.001+07:002009-03-21T14:20:54.552+07:00

She's at it again. Our revered Minster of Health is again lashing out at the foreigners, according to the Jakarta Globe (Minister Wary of Foreign ‘Attack’, although the print version has the headline 'Minister Attacks Foreign Funding', with the subhead "Paranoia? 'World will use our viruses or DNA do attack us'").As I have noted before, her decree banning export of viruses and DNA samples has put

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-636083784674163342009-03-16T15:22:00.000+07:002009-03-16T15:24:03.634+07:00

Those days before AIDS. I've written about them before, but this time from a different perspective. I'm currently in Singapore on another visa run, and something took my mind back more than 40 years to when I was with the British Army about 100km north of here, at Kluang in Johore State. I was then working for the Army Air Corps (AAC), and the base in Kluang was used for 'theatre conversion.'

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-70538384448969819152009-03-15T10:25:00.000+07:002009-03-15T10:28:18.907+07:00

My posting yesterday reminded me that the age of consent is a continuing problem here. There is no clear definition of this age here, since a number of different laws provide different ages. I think there seems to be a consensus that in general it's 18 years for a woman and 21 for a man. But this applies to marriage (I think) and not clearly to medical decisions.Many health care providers assume

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-1851019439690262152009-03-14T13:16:00.000+07:002009-03-14T13:19:42.046+07:00

While on my way to the office (a journey of an hour at best), I (try to) do the Sudoko and crossword puzzles in the Jakarta Post. On the rare occasions that I finish both, I often turn to the Classifieds. The section headed Massage; it rarely has less than 20 small ads, offering massage by females and males in about equal quantities.There used to be one or two that are offering a 'real' massage,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-7135096999781095172009-03-11T09:16:00.002+07:002009-03-11T09:22:22.615+07:00

There's been much uninformed discussion regarding Provider-Initiated Testing and Counselling (PITC - or is it PICT?) here. Nobody seems willing to come up with a clear definition of what we mean by this, let alone achieving a consensus on how it might be implemented. But it is abundantly clear (as I have written before) that the current practice of VCT will take more than 25 years to identify

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-12981001135975613972009-03-10T13:34:00.001+07:002009-03-10T13:36:04.793+07:00

There's been a lot of traffic among the chattering classes here as a result of the news that Indonesia was among 13 countries that voted against the inclusion of the words 'harm reduction' in a footnote to the draft Political Declaration from the 52nd Session of the Commission on Narcotics Drugs (CND) in Vienna. As a result, apparently harm reduction is not mentioned in the draft political

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-87111602857902395742009-03-09T16:21:00.001+07:002009-03-09T16:24:53.968+07:00

The younger members of the community, or perhaps those with shorter memories, tend to forget the AIDS is only the latest spectre affecting the sex scene. Although the cure for syphilis emerged in the 1940's, at the time I was coming out in the 50's, there was still a huge fear of this venereal disease (VD as we all knew it then). And rightly so. Prior to the arrival of penicillin, syphilis

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-84009661491819359362009-03-08T16:02:00.000+07:002009-03-08T16:04:13.994+07:00

My brain (that box that sits beside my keyboard) reminds me that I planned to write more about laws addressing HIV in Indonesia. As I mentioned, there is no national law on HIV, and this in theory presents a challenge for provincial legislators. This is because a local by-law must refer to a higher level law (those paragraphs starting 'Mindful of' and 'Paying attention to'). Without that higher

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-2634878251158994842009-03-07T17:04:00.001+07:002009-03-07T17:07:46.285+07:00

Yesterday, I mentioned that the second half of my week was taken up with prisons. Actually, I was lucky enough to attend a workshop on scaling up the response to HIV in prisons in Java and Bali. The workshop was organized by the Department of Justice and Human Rights (Depkumham in its Indonesian acronym; a combination which often causes a snigger, but in my experience makes good sense). Invited

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-29748025424576995832009-03-06T11:48:00.001+07:002009-03-06T11:51:57.025+07:00

It's been a hectic week! We were asked by UNAIDS here to run three courses on preparing and submitting abstracts to the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP). Actually, UNAIDS is only funding; the ICAAP Local Organising Committee (LOC) is responsible for selection of the 150 participants, drawn from seven key groups: drug users; gay, lesbian, bisex and transex (LGBT);

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-17212772636472231612009-02-27T15:41:00.000+07:002009-02-27T15:43:32.327+07:00

More sad news, I fear. We've lost one of the very earliest of our activists. Sulasi was always open about her status, so I don't think I need to hide her name. She was identified as HIV-positive in 1991, in Surabaya. Like our late friend in Makassar, her case became a sensation.As one of the very first, she was 'monitored' by the local health department. When she decided to get married a couple

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-48669507883153680942009-02-26T10:38:00.000+07:002009-02-26T10:40:26.434+07:00

Activists here frequently press for a law on HIV. The current legislation does not mention HIV specifically, and there is fear that the law on contagious diseases (which allows for quarantining of those infected) might be applied to HIV infection. We all know that HIV is not contagious, but the difference is not clear in Indonesian.There is also hope that a law on HIV would outlaw discrimination.

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-26624640574264516412009-02-21T15:41:00.000+07:002009-02-21T15:42:53.556+07:00

An E-mail from Ken in Australia reminded me that it was time I put a bit of effort into the English language part of the Spiritia web site. Naturally our first priority is to providing clear information for people in Indonesia in their own language. But a secondary objective, similar to the primary one of this blog, is to provide a picture of the state of the HIV epidemic in Indonesia for

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-49048820184758377652009-02-19T16:28:00.000+07:002009-02-19T16:29:58.167+07:00

I have written before about the trials and tribulations around translating articles into Indonesian. My old friend Dr Erwin Widjono (the founder of the Jakarta Drugs Dependency Hospital or RSKO back in the 70's - but that's another story!) always complained that Indonesian is a very impoverished language. It's very difficult to express shades of feeling in the language. He told me that he first

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-33365364757416303892009-02-15T15:51:00.003+07:002009-02-15T15:55:52.485+07:00

Residents and visitors to Jakarta will be aware of the Busway saga. There are currently seven corridors in operation, although a lack of buses means that the frequency is well below the five minutes required to make any real impact on the Jakarta traffic. But despite all the challenges (several buses have burst into flames, and the busway lanes are taken over in the rush hours by other vehicles,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-12052562175249384802009-02-13T17:25:00.001+07:002009-02-13T17:35:35.798+07:00

I've written before about the Denver Principles, proclaimed by a group of HIV-positive activists in 1983 at the first AIDS conference. I noted then the preamble to the declaration, which noted:We condemn attempts to label us as ‘victims,’ a term which implies defeat...Yet 25 years later, some of us are quite happy to be given that label - at least the Indonesian language equivalent, "korban' (

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-19385860291294393692009-02-11T17:25:00.001+07:002009-02-11T17:27:20.491+07:00

Are the antiretrovirals (ARV) produced in Indonesia equal to the imported ones? This question is often asked in the various forums and during meetings with people with HIV here. I have usually answered that the generic drugs industry in Indonesia is said to have a good reputation, that the Indonesian Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) is said to do a good job of monitoring the industry, and

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-83240436143636585142009-02-09T19:21:00.000+07:002009-02-09T19:22:44.716+07:00

I have on several occasions referred to the longer-term threats to survival which face many people with AIDS in Indonesia. Perhaps the greatest threat will be caused by the high prevalence of viral hepatitis co-infection among those with HIV in Indonesia - probably as high as 50%. The effects of this co-infection will start to be felt early in the next decade, given the longer 'latency' of viral

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-6310966603557214932009-02-08T16:05:00.001+07:002009-02-08T16:07:46.871+07:00

I've written before - and I'm sure I'll write again - about the figures, So often we read the reports, we see that figures, but we don't think much about what the figures mean. We all know that 'mortality' means real people dying, but in reports it can become just another statistic.I've just been working on the final draft of our annual report. Among others, we generally comment on the fact that

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-66796524309256615192009-02-07T18:09:00.001+07:002009-02-07T18:12:04.800+07:00

One of the ever-present side-effects of working in the AIDS field is burn-out. I guess we've all experienced it, to a greater or lesser extent. Of course it hits the health care workers most heavily, as Theo Smart of aidsmap has identified in a recent issue of the HATIP (HIV/AIDS Treatment in Practice) newsletter, Caring for the caregivers in the face of HIV and TB. As Theo notes, there is a

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-86543743083295018892009-02-04T18:30:00.000+07:002009-02-04T18:33:11.948+07:00

Probably all of you have seen Lucy Williamson's report Tackling Indonesia's HIV spread on the BBC web site. Lucy has been doing a lot of research for her articles about HIV here, including meeting with us collectively at Spiritia, and separate meetings with several of us - thanks for the lunch, Lucy!Lucy refers to 72 districts. I assume that is the number that will be supported by the new Global

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-56789453762745449572009-02-03T19:06:00.001+07:002009-02-03T19:08:03.993+07:00

How important is history? There has been a debate about this over the last few days. On our web site, we have included a History of AIDS in Indonesia, based on the History pages on the Avert web site (which we have also translated).In Indonesia, our report says that the history starts in 1983. It was then that Dr. Zubairi returned from post-graduate training in Paris where he worked under Prof.

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-13652574820945774112009-02-02T19:53:00.002+07:002009-02-02T19:56:47.863+07:00

It's been a bad computer day! This morning, when I tried to open the Spiritia web site, I got an error. Not particularly unusual: recently they've had problems with a service called DNS, which works like a telephone directory, to convert 'spiritia.or.id' into an address a computer can understand. The frustrating thing is that is only affects people logging in form the Radnet domain (Radnet host

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-63806465839176669702009-01-30T17:57:00.002+07:002009-01-30T18:02:41.194+07:00

The HIV epidemic seems to be built upon figures. Funding, prevalence, case reports, ages, as well as CD4 counts and viral loads. And too often we make crucial decisions based upon less than accurate figures.Case in point: the decision to start antiretroviral therapy is often dependent upon the CD4 count. We meet the criteria if our CD4 count is less than 200. Nice and simple. But as John Bartlett

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-21814210983409900282009-01-28T17:32:00.001+07:002009-01-28T17:35:10.013+07:00

It's ironic that, just after I write about how antiretroviral therapy (ART) has extended life, we get news that one of the 'old timers' has passed away. Even though she went public about her infection (or actually was 'outed') many years ago, I still don't feel comfortable to give her name, but some may know who I am referring to when I call her 'N" from South Sulawesi.I'm not sure exactly when

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-69578223490807309222009-01-26T16:13:00.001+07:002009-01-26T16:15:08.413+07:00

In the training just completed, as usual we discussed how to select recipients of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Of course, in an ideal world, everyone who needed ART (or at least those who meet the criteria) would get it free of charge. And currently that is the situation in Indonesia, although of course not in every third world country. But according to the Indonesian communicable diseases

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-71706087699277810802009-01-24T17:34:00.000+07:002009-01-24T17:35:37.906+07:00

There's no doubt that the anti-HIV drugs that have been available in Indonesia for several years now have made an immense difference in our community. It used to be that six months or a year after we held any meeting, at least one third of the participants had died. Continuity was almost impossible, because the faces were always changing.Now it's very different. In some cases, meetings have

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-26097051514456628322009-01-21T12:11:00.002+07:002009-01-21T12:12:47.738+07:00

The subject of herbal therapy is always 'hot' in Indonesia. As I have noted before, we frequently receive questions about AIDS 'cures'. There's now an ongoing discussion in the Healthcare Journalists mail list here, about suggestions, made on a TV program, that cervical cancer can be cured by herbal therapy.I'm more than a little interested in this topic, because the wife of my driver (who after

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-11752719332806001352009-01-20T09:58:00.003+07:002009-01-20T14:08:55.580+07:00

It is encouraging to see that (almost) President Barack Obama has already promised to focus on the global HIV challenge, in the The Obama-Biden plan to combat global HIV/AIDS. The Obama-Biden plan notes that they believe more must be done to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. It reminds us that Obama and his wife both publicly had an HIV test in Kenya in 2006. 'to encourage African men and women to

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-24059907257815198442009-01-19T18:24:00.001+07:002009-01-19T18:26:23.985+07:00

After the Symposium in Bangkok last week had finished, I spent an pleasant afternoon with Lia Sciortino. Old Indonesia AIDS hands will remember that she used to work for Ford Foundation here, responsible for reproductive health programs funded by Ford, including HIV. At that time (1995), I was volunteering with the Pelita Ilmu Foundation (YPI), helping to develop programs for support of people

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-64658211418225520742009-01-18T15:43:00.001+07:002009-01-18T15:47:16.142+07:00

Just back from the 12th Bangkok International Symposium on HIV Medicine, organised by HIV-NAT - the HIV Netherlands Australia Thailand Research Collaboration. This year was the fourth consecutive year that I have attended this Symposium, and each year I have found it - for me - the most useful meeting. It is practical, offering information that is immediately of use, presented by internationally

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-62964903420995323262009-01-16T07:13:00.001+07:002009-01-18T15:50:10.749+07:00

I'm sure we all appreciate being appreciated. As the quote from Douglas MacArthur notes, it is one of the elements of 'The unfailing formula for production of morale." So it's always nice to receive a little kudos.The following message has just been posted on our anonymous Q&A site, so I don't know who it is from:Dear Babe,Thank you!Thank you for all the time you've dedicated to this website, for

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-52720941215775063802009-01-13T13:27:00.000+07:002009-01-13T13:30:47.226+07:00

One of the sentences in Michael's report that the editors highlighted was:Over-prescribing expensive medicines to uninformed patients is nothing new to observers of Indonesia’s graft-ridden health systemThere is no doubt that this is a problem. But a recent report, The Neurontin Legacy — Marketing through Misinformation and Manipulation, in the New England Journal of Medicine (free to those

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-74991621072197582762009-01-12T18:24:00.000+07:002009-01-12T18:27:23.621+07:00

There IS some positive news, even if you have to dig a little for it. I've written before l about the way prisons in Indonesia are responding to HIV. Far from perfect, but at least quite enlightened. This was brought home to me by a report on Voice of America at the end of last year, headed Prisoners With HIV, AIDS in Thailand Now Receive Vital Treatment.Seeing that headline, I assumed that as

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-51710656817163599782009-01-11T14:23:00.001+07:002009-01-11T14:27:24.521+07:00

Yesterday I met with Michael (author of No Positive News) together with 'Nuraini'. I'd met her on a couple of earlier occasions, first when she was just thinking of starting therapy. And she has been in contact by SMS several times since, usually because of problems of drug supply. She was happy to note that, despite all these problems, her viral load had become undetectable about a month after

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-58872986854861161022009-01-09T16:13:00.002+07:002009-01-09T18:10:31.482+07:00

...but sometimes I just can't resist! Yesterday, this appeared on the anonymous Q&A forum we run:By mistake, I once swallowed a hair while eating fried rice on the street. Perhaps the hair came from the fried rice seller. If we swallow a hair from someone with HIV/AIDS, can we become infected?I fear I had fun with the answer:Wow, that's dangerous! I think there's no risk you'll be infected with

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-23433245962175478542009-01-07T18:44:00.001+07:002009-01-07T18:49:15.536+07:00

How do we know if the babies of HIV-positive mums are infected? Clearly the head of the Sukabumi municipal health service (Dinas Kesehatan), Boyke Priyono, is not clear. He should be aware that the normal HIV test, which looks for antibodies, may give a positive result in such babies up to the age of 18 months. This is because babies are bequeathed all of their mother's antibodies at birth. It

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-77979205477801675252009-01-06T17:38:00.001+07:002009-01-06T17:40:42.508+07:00

"Prisons face ongoing over capacity problems in Indonesia" - so states a recent headline in the Jakarta Post. What an understatement! The article quotes Untung Sugiyono, Director General of Penitentiaries at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry as saying that Indonesia has around 400 penitentiaries with a total capacity of nearly 90,000, but currently they are required to hold more than 130,000

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-20175764513406672892009-01-05T18:16:00.002+07:002009-01-05T18:20:04.447+07:00

Returning to Michael's article in Inside Indonesia. I'm sure that anyone who is involved with HIV in Indonesia has identified 'Professor Setiawan'. I fully understand the frustration of 'Nuraini' and Michael, and there's no point in me trying to defend the doctor. Nuraini's report is unfortunately by no means unique. We have frequently suggested ways that doctors could spend more time with their

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-26639676443453149782009-01-04T17:40:00.000+07:002009-01-04T17:43:12.317+07:00

Some of you may have read Michael Buehler's article "No positive news: People living with HIV face corruption and incompetence in the health system" in the last issue of Inside Indonesia. I am very aware of the case he reports, and sadly it is only too typical. We have been fighting these problems since antiretrovirals (ARVs) first became available in Indonesia over five years ago.At that time,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-12744710715146492062009-01-03T18:11:00.005+07:002009-01-03T18:38:12.858+07:00

The Indonesian AIDS mail list is frequently more like gossip over the fence, with anybody who can write (even though often with difficulty) pitching in his or her two (or 0.2) cents-worth. But sometimes a topic comes up which makes us think. This was the case with a recent one from Robert in Jayapura.He was asking from guidance: If a transgender person dies, how should he/she be buried? In this

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-34552802015023604022009-01-02T19:02:00.002+07:002009-01-02T19:08:23.952+07:00

I've written before about The Cure. And I'm sure I'll write about it again. This time it's a thread headed "Does a cure matter?" on the Spiritia Forum in the section reserved for people with HIV to open their hearts. (One problem with these postings is that they use 'bahasa gaul', a language of the younger generation which I frequently have difficulty understanding, but I'll try to convey the

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-8588555689185759962009-01-01T15:00:00.003+07:002009-01-01T15:02:17.195+07:00

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've been very lazy for several months. As I said in my first post, I am not much of a diarist, and I was a bit worried that I could keep it up. I took a holiday in England over the Lebaran holiday, and tried to forget all about Indonesia and AIDS for a couple of weeks; seems I did too good a job of that! Anyway, due to overwhelming request (at least three!),

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-77502105894340976052008-12-31T17:17:00.001+07:002008-12-31T17:20:01.656+07:00

I'm sure we should never feel glad that a fellow human being has died. However, the death of Christine Maggiore, the renowned (or notorious) AIDS denier, almost certainly of AIDS, suggests poetic justice. It is difficult to defend a mother who would allow her three-year old daughter to die because of her misplaced beliefs.What has this to do with Indonesia? Sadly, once again there are those here

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-87387306797431383502008-09-25T17:55:00.001+07:002008-09-25T17:58:03.580+07:00

Can state hospitals in Indonesia compete with others in the region? The government clearly thinks so. The Jakarta Post reports that 'the government will turn five state hospitals into world-class medical clinics...' The five include the main Jakarta hospital, usually known as RSCM. This huge overcrowded hospital is well-known to many in Indonesia, acting as it often does as a sink-hole for

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-41110281696939438772008-09-24T17:07:00.000+07:002008-09-24T17:09:26.228+07:00

AIDS cyberspace in Indonesia is hot about the draft law on pornography, currently being debated by parliament, and promised as a Lebaran present to the Muslim community. Although (probably) few have actually studied the draft, there is much fear that it will impact on the diversity of Indonesia. For example, will it be against the law to photograph a Papuan wearing only a koteka (a penis sheath)?

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-6619676867513149732008-09-23T18:30:00.001+07:002008-09-23T18:32:14.685+07:00

Been off the air for the last couple of weeks, due to a lengthy visit to Perth in Australia, partly to attend the 20th Conference of the Australasian Society of HIV Medicine (ASHM). Many of the science sessions were well over my head; my colleague Tim Mackay commented that listening and watching the slides of some of these sessions was like attending a symphony concert: you don't understand it,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-6737273361487012012008-09-11T19:48:00.003+07:002008-09-11T19:52:30.556+07:00

Sorry, it's been a while since I wrote! The Telkomsel Internet connection in Kupang was really frustrating, on-off-on again. Almost impossible to do useful work.The training there went quite well. The general level of participants was not very high, almost at Papua level. So we had to do a lot of extra explaining, which added at least an hour to each day's schedule. So I was quite tired by the

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-37892328194069222662008-09-06T05:35:00.000+07:002008-09-06T05:37:18.620+07:00

The Telkomsel (national mobile telephone operator) Internet connection here in Kupang is going from bad to worse. Today it has been almost impossible to use my mobile even for calls. Most of the time, there has been no service; it comes on for a minute or so, then drops again. The SMS connection has been down for most of the day.At lunch time, I needed to check my bank account. I had just managed

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-48051002540202611082008-09-04T12:17:00.001+07:002008-09-04T12:19:36.309+07:00

There's a lovely couple here in Kupang, that I have known for several years. But only today I found out a little more about them.It was back in 2004, before they were married, that they decided to get tested. Sadly, the result was that both were positive. Luckily they did get counselling. Unluckily, the counsellor had little knowledge or idea about HIV - not particularly unusual here. So she told

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-7256483542960165612008-09-02T20:04:00.000+07:002008-09-02T20:06:31.221+07:00

Arrived in Kupang in East Nusatenggara this morning for a week with Caroline (one of my Spiritia colleagues, and a frequent companion on these trips) to do treatment education training. Today we've been training a couple of members of the local peer support group (Flobamora Plus) to present some of the sessions, and the training proper will start tomorrow afternoon. There'll be 18 participants,

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-7288058930641489292008-09-01T18:07:00.001+07:002008-09-01T18:09:39.299+07:00

What should we be doing to encourage people to have an HIV test? According to even the most optimistic estimates, less than 10 percent of those living with HIV in Indonesia are aware that they are infected, and many are dying of AIDS undiagnosed. Does this matter?Most would say yes. With treatment available now, we could save these deaths. Or could we? The health system is overwhelmed attempting

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-10040172201852941352008-08-29T18:00:00.000+07:002008-08-29T18:01:34.443+07:00

The supply chain for antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in Indonesia is a real mess. Almost every month, at least one hospital runs out of one or more of the drugs. And about every three months, the country runs out. The problems vary from orders not placed, no money, poor inventory control and reporting in the hospitals, lost reports at the centre, and on and on.I've talked before of the reluctance to

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-32259775808880812562008-08-28T18:33:00.002+07:002008-08-28T18:37:29.550+07:00

Yesterday had a call from a young executive living with HIV. His CD4 count is around 150, but he's not yet started antiretroviral therapy (ART). But he was calling to ask about the side effects he was still experiencing after a month's TB treatment. He told me that a test had shown that he had active TB, but no he was no longer infectious. So, he asked, could he stop the TB treatment? It turned

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-65912984536428843062008-08-27T18:53:00.000+07:002008-08-27T18:54:05.695+07:00

For the first time in my 'Indonesian' life, today I was forced to do the 'Singapore Visa Run'. Up to now, more recently with help from friends, I've managed to arrange longer term visas. In fact on two separate occasions, I managed to obtain a permanent stay permit (KITAP). But only in Indonesia would a 'permanent' permit be only valid for five years!Anyway, my luck ran out, and today my visa

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-71318568558750590962008-08-26T20:01:00.000+07:002008-08-26T20:03:05.798+07:00

Since the first cases of AIDS in Indonesia (and elsewhere, I'm sure), hospitals have got their knickers in a twist about universal precautions. These require health care providers to assume that all patients are potentially infected with a nasty, which they could catch themselves or pass on to other patients. So they should take appropriate action to reduce that risk.The most basic precaution is

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-47485819830634820712008-08-25T15:47:00.000+07:002008-08-25T15:50:56.322+07:00

Back in the 'old days', at the start of the AIDS epidemic in Indonesia, there was thought to be a regulation that the body of anyone who died of the disease should be wrapped in plastic. I have never managed to confirm that this rule ever existed; I suspect it was a hang-over from the assumption that HIV is a contagious disease.Back in 1993, when my partner died, the hospital and the morticians

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-90911762832091976542008-08-24T11:43:00.003+07:002008-08-24T11:49:17.209+07:00

...on the one side, and by science on the other.On Sunday mornings I wake up to "The State We're In: Human Rights and Human Wrongs" from Radio Netherlands and WAMU Washington, relayed on the World Radio Network. This morning, one of the topics was alternative medicines: "quackery or essential" (One man's shaman, another man's fool?).I've talked before about the quackery in Indonesia. But it's not

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-16400938526822970082008-08-22T13:15:00.001+07:002008-08-22T13:21:51.913+07:00

I've talked before about the controversial Swiss statement. I've also commented results of the mathematical model study, that showed that if an HIV-positive partner with undetectible viral load, etc. discarded his condom during sex with his negative female partner, an additional 425 women out of every 10,000 such partners would become infected over ten years.Relevant or not? I have met with quite

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-60375169431151618622008-08-20T15:34:00.002+07:002008-08-20T15:46:39.516+07:00

I visited my first prison in Indonesia in late 2002: Kerobokan in Bali, We knew that the prison was home to many injecting drug users (IDUs), and a study by Made Setiawan et al from 1998 had told us that even then a quarter of the prisoners were still injecting - then as now, it's often easier to score in prison than outside on the street. More recently, surveillance in the prison had reported 36

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-73262192306496746842008-08-19T19:21:00.001+07:002008-08-19T19:24:03.022+07:00

I'm quite often contacted by expats living with HIV in Indonesia. Understandably, most are worried about their future here; will they suddenly find themselves person non grata? Even more so for those who have suffered from Singapore's draconian laws, see my comments in Avoid Singapore.Just had an E-mail from one who had just lighted on a report about Magic Johnson being denied entry back in 1994.

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-38572113902777523292008-08-18T13:37:00.001+07:002008-08-18T13:39:24.193+07:00

Can you be a legislator it you are infected with HIV? Apparently some of the Indonesian political parties don't think so. They will require their candidates to produce a lab test report that proves they are free of HIV and AIDS.This has become a hot topic in Indonesian AIDS cyberspace. The law apparently requires candidates to be 'physically and mentally healthy', and even some of 'us' think that

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-27391147409071365252008-08-17T17:23:00.001+07:002008-08-17T17:25:36.043+07:00

One of the most popular activities at Indonesian Independence Day contests is the climbing the greasy pole. The pole in this case is usually the smoothed trunk of a betel nut tree, known in Indonesia as pinang. But in many parts of Indonesia, and in particular in Papua, this tree is better known for the areca nuts it produces, Chewing these nuts, together with sirih leaves and lime, produces a

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-828625163560017382008-08-16T18:28:00.002+07:002008-08-16T18:31:23.491+07:00

A couple of years back, a very pregnant young lady came to see me, let's call her Desni. She told me that she was living with HIV, and wanted to know what she should do to stop her baby becoming infected. I gave her details of the latest guidelines that I got from the Internet. She then told me that she had already been to Dr. A at the B Hospital, who had given her different advice. Desni had

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-91558614503296629582008-08-15T18:24:00.001+07:002008-08-15T18:26:06.354+07:00

We often seem to get our knickers in a twist over the statistics. Take for example the following quote from the article "'Moderate-risk' Indonesia to see HIV boom: Report" in yesterday's Jakarta Post""[National AIDS Commission deputy secretary for development] Kemal said if Indonesia failed to improve its preventive measures against HIV/AIDS infection, the country's number of people living with

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-21455355809394876932008-08-14T17:01:00.002+07:002008-08-14T17:07:23.922+07:00

You'd think that trained counsellors would be able to understand the meaning of the window period (the period of up to three months between infection with HIV and the generation of sufficient antibodies to produce a positive result from the HIV test). But no, they almost always seem to tell clients with a non-reactive result that they need to come back in three months for another test, regardless

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-48912561125991788612008-08-13T18:44:00.001+07:002008-08-13T18:47:25.587+07:00

Not sure want triggered it, but the front page headlines in Kompas for the last couple of days have been about tropical diseases. As in most of the world, these are neglected, not only in terms of treatment, but also as the reports are making clear, also in local research.It is worrying that leprosy is on the rise again. Only a month or so ago, we had our first report of this nasty disease

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7488109869179087134.post-60028199902518893472008-08-12T18:38:00.001+07:002008-08-12T18:39:36.710+07:00

Although singing is very common in Indonesia, and some ethnic groups (I'm thinking particularly of the Bataks) are famous for their choirs, there seem to be no 'activist' songs. Something reminded me today of meetings of AIDS activists that I was lucky enough to join on two visits to South Africa a few years back. Participants always seemed to be singing. If the meeting was a few minutes late

Babéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03438080828933009608noreply@blogger.com0