World AIDS Day 2010: Universal Access & Human Rights...

Each year on 1 December the world comes together to focus on HIV / AIDS and finding ways to speed up the process of finding a vaccination and a cure for the scourge of our times. It is also a day to reflect on what we have achieved in the fight against discrimination towards those that are HIV+ and identify as being so. It is also a day where we can recommit to ensuring that those already infected are given every possible opportunity to lead full and productive lives where they contribute to the development of their respective communities.

This year the theme is "Universal Access and Human Rights" and it is all about working towards improving understanding and defeating prejudice. In this sense it is not only about others, rather it is about us as individuals and how we act in conjunction with awareness about the steps that we take as individuals to get educated on HIV / AIDS and the awareness of how to protect ourselves from infection that contributes to overall awareness of HIV / AIDS.

The reality is that HIV / AIDS is not the hot topic that it once was in terms of it being on the front page of every newspaper. This has in turn led to an ever-increasing amount of complacency creeping into how we behave with respect to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV / AIDS.



Ultimately, this year is about ensuring that all people who are HIV+ have access to all that they need and to ensure that HIV+ people are treated with the dignity and respect that all humans have a basic and universal right to.

Maybe today is a day that we can commit to universal HIV / AIDS education in all schools as a means of ensuring that our children are given the best possible knowledge to make informed and sensible decisions for themselves. 

Just a thought! 

Virginity: A Minority of Indonesian Youths...

A recent survey by the National Population and Family Planning Board (Badan Kependudukan dan Keluarga Berencana Nasional / BKKBN) of Indonesia has turned up some interesting results about the number of Indonesian youths engaging in pre-marital sex. The survey was conducted in 2010 and the results are the best indication yet of the state of play for Indonesian teenagers.

The survey results show that 51% of those teenagers surveyed in the greater Jakarta area of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi (Jabodetabek) admit to having engaged in pre-marital sexual relations. This is important data to consider, especially with World AIDS Day about to take place tomorrow, 1 December 2010. The data is also important as a tool for legislators and teachers. There is an explicit and urgent need for personal development and personal health education, sex education if you will, to be incorporated into school curriculum throughout Indonesia.

The fact that there are some who would argue that sex education will only encourage children to be sexually active are really burying their collective heads in the sand. The data shows that without sex education our children are engaging in sexual activity in ever-increasing numbers. Therefore, it makes sense to ensure that our children have access to, and learn about, the most up-to-date information on sex. It is time that some people began to realise that sex education is more than getting out the old cucumber and rolling on a condom, and then saying "OK children, that is how it is done! Alrighty, back to maths!"

Outside of the Jabodetabek Surabaya is leading the way at 54%, Medan is at 52%, and Bandung is at just 47%. The survey results also indicate that more than a third of sexually active females are experiencing a pregnancy before marriage. Abortion is illegal in Indonesia except where there is a legitimate medical reason for a doctor to perform an abortion. Therefore, with such a large rate of pre-marital pregnancy prevalent in the community the risk of these youths go to backyard abortion hacks is real.

The data suggests that of the 2.4 million abortions performed in Indonesia annually, some 800,000 of these are performed on teenagers with an unwanted pregnancy. Therefore, there are good reasons for the government to consider the results of these surveys from not only an educational perspective but a public health one too.

Unfortunately, any suggestion that the government get involved is likely to be interpreted as a need to legislate morality. The chance therefore is that the government will try to criminalise pre-marital sex in more ways than one cares to poke a stick at while simultaneously committing greater resources to enforcement of draconian legal measures to stop teenagers from having sex. This sort of response only takes us back to the dark ages of times past. Yet, this is what happens when you ask crotchety old men who have not had sex in decades will do when given the opportunity.

The reason that education in this case needs to be personal development and personal health as opposed to just plain and simple sex education is that the data notes that of the 3.2 million people suffering from drug addiction in Indonesia, some 78% of them are teenagers. The data further suggests there are some links between increasing intravenous drug use and increasing numbers of young people becoming HIV positive.

In light of this (rant and rail to follow) it is imperative that the government and educators get their collective heads together and come up with a personal development and personal health curriculum that can be implemented across the board in Indonesian schools. It is critical that we educate our children so that they are forewarned and therefore forearmed. We have a responsibility, not only to our children but, to ourselves to ensure that our children have at their disposal the necessary information to make informed decisions to save themselves from harm. The reality is that we cannot, nor do we want to, live in the pockets of our children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, we can still give them what they need to understand the dangers and make decisions they feel are best for them.

Thus endeth the sermon!

Kim Kardashian is Dead!

It would seem that Kim Kardashian is dead.

Well, it is not nearly as tragic as it sounds. Kim Kardashian is dead in the social networking sense until she raises USD 1 million for the "Keep A Child Alive" foundation. The campaign is part of the much larger World AIDS Day campaign that happens on 1 December 2010.

So, all you KK fans out there in cyber space, open your wallets and donate if you want to see Kim rise from the dead and start wearing skimpy bikinis again!

Lady Gaga Going Off-Line For Charity...

Lady Gaga will not be the only celebrity going offline for charity on Wednesday, 1 December 2010. 1 December is World AIDS Day. Gaga will be joined by Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Hudson, Ryan Seacrest, Justin Timberlake and a whole host of others. The celebrities will be supporting Alicia Keys and the "Keep A Child Alive" foundation.

The idea is that the celebrities go offline from all their social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, until the campaign reaches a certain agreed target. This year the target is USD 1 million. All the money raised is earmarked to go to needy families affected by HIV / AIDS in Africa and India.

This could be a pretty easy money spinner considering that Gaga has some seven million Twitter followers and  twenty four million Facebook friends. In comparison, I have 70 and 520 respectively. Maybe all I need to do is dress a little more provocatively?

I do not follow Lady Gaga or any of the other stars that are mentioned here. However, I am supportive of any campaign that is endeavouring to help those afflicted by the scourge of our time, HIV / AIDS.

If you can support World AIDS Day causes on 1 December. And, if you are a Lady Gaga fan, then support her.

The Pope Sees the Light...

Pope Benedict XVI has seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not Jesus. The Pope, God bless his soul, has finally worked out that abstinence, although the best solution, is not a reality that the Catholic Church can make happen. Well, not unless they start forcibly restraining unmarried or un-partnered couples.

Condoms, particularly the use of them, are not a 100% effective way of preventing the spread of STD or STI. However, they do significantly better than the option of taking a shower without a raincoat. In any event, the Pope's support is not blanket support for the idea that the Catholic Church facilitate a program of condom distribution through its parishes.

The Pope's support suggests that prostitutes, and in particular male prostitutes,would be beginning to act responsibly if they were to start using condoms. I might have to go out and get the book from which the Pope's comments are sourced: Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times. And, the news story that I pilfered for this piece was quoting from excerpts that were published in The Vatican rag, L’Osservatore Romano.

The Catholic Church has adopted a position that is anti-condom use. It has maintained this position in the face of some intense and harsh criticism. So, is this statement by the Pope indicative of a softening in the position of the Catholic Church? No, it is not. The Pope was very explicit in restricting his comments to a very narrow range of condom use. His choice of male prostitutes was undoubtedly a conscious one that was sort to deflect any concerns about condoms being used as a contraceptive device. The position of the Catholic Church with respect to the use of condoms as a form of contraception remains unchanged.

Yet, when it is all said and done, there is an argument to be made that this may in fact be a first step in recognising that the issue of HIV / AIDS and other sexually transmitted disease and infection is an issue that transcends simple arguments of morality. It is an issue that has and will continue to be a measure of the times in which we live, particularly if you live in Africa or Asia.

Progress is progress even if it is in small and scripted steps.

HIV and Indonesia: Personal Thoughts...

In light of the previous post, I am feeling a little in the ranting and railing mood.

HIV / AIDS is a scourge. It is the scourge of our time. We must dedicate all the resources that are required to ensure that we defeat. The decisions that need to be made are human ones and not political or business ones. The idealist in me believes that what I seek is possible. Yet, I am a realist and that reality is that politics and business will always play a role in how we as a community craft decisions for the greater good. So, it is in that frame that I would advocate increased resources being directed to education.

The simple truth is that if we cannot find a vaccine or a cure in the immediate term for whatever reason, then we have a responsibility to educate our youth, and anyone else who needs it, to ensure that they have the knowledge necessary to protect themselves from infection.

In the Indonesian case, this means that some hard decisions need to be made. Sex education and personal development education must become an integral part of the Indonesian curriculum. This is the case, even if it means standing up and staring down those who oppose such moves. A cold hard reality is that educators and government bureaucracy can no longer bury their collective heads in the sand and pretend that our children are going to abstain from sexual activity, including high-risk sexual activity. Forewarned is forearmed.

This educational process will need to start with educators themselves. Educators need to have the requisite content knowledge if they are going to successfully transfer that knowledge to students. Once there is a "core" of trained professionals, then these people can go out and educate others and our children. The process has to be uniform.

It is my sincere hope that I am uniformed on this matter. It is also my sincere hope that UNAIDS and the National AIDS Commission of Indonesia in association with a wide array of funders already have these programs in place and running.

There is a definite need for leadership on this front. Hopefully, the government of Indonesia can step up and take the lead.

Bali & HIV...

The National AIDS Commission of Indonesia has reported that one in four of some 8,000 sex workers in Bali  are HIV positive. For the percentage inclined, that is 25%. The data also shows a corresponding spike in infection rates. This is primarily being discussed as an issue of heterosexual men having unprotected sex with HIV+ sex workers and then going home to infect their partners.

Official figures record Bali as having 3,181 case of HIV infection. This figure does not includes a spike of 18.7% over the past 12 months, which sees that figure rise a further 596 cases to a total of 3,778. It is expected that if the government does not become much more pro-active in tackling HIV/AIDS through more comprehensive education and prevention strategies that this number is likely to increase.

On a somewhat scarier note, the Commission reports that it estimates that the figures represent about 15% of the 'true' number of infections. This is about where UNAIDS stands on HIV infections in Indonesia. UNAIDS estimates that there are at least 270,000 Indonesians living with HIV.

West Java, Papua and Bali seem to be the provinces most effected and affected by HIV / AIDS. To be honest, I am surprised that the number is not even higher still.

On a more positive note. The fact that more HIV cases are being reported may be indicative of more people becoming more willing to be tested and treated in the event they are positive. Also in the positive side of the equation is that there are regulations in place that prohibit discrimination against HIV+ people in the workplace. I appreciate that there is a difference between having regulations in place and enforcement. However, it must be noted that the regulations are their and people can avail themselves of the opportunity to address any discrimination that they may be exposed to in the workplace.

Hopefully, it will not be too far into the future that we will have a vaccine to prevent further infections and a cure for those already infected.

Tifatul Sembiring -- The Minister for Stupidity & Nonsense...

There is nothing funny about HIV / AIDS and there is nothing funny about Tifatul Sembiring (aka TitS). It would seem that TitS via his Twitter account (@tifsembiring) thought that a joke through a play on the letters of AIDS would be something amusing to send to all his Twitter followers.

Now, AIDS for just about everyone else stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. But, for @tifsembiring it stands for, in Indonesian, Akibat Itunya Ditaruh Sembarangan, which in English means in essence "caused by the reckless putting of one's penis" presumably into places where penis' should not be.

This sort of reminds me of a time way back when, perhaps in the mid to late 1980s, a time when I was just a youngster, and when AIDS was still very much considered "a gay disease". The "joke" then was Anally Injected Death Sentence which was neither funny nor representative of what sort of tragedy was to unfold on a much broader scale, and a tragedy that continues to unfold on a large scale even today in places like Africa.

TitS tweet is offensive, but then it is hardly surprising as he is an offensive man. He is very much a sufferer of PKS or Perennial Klown Syndrome. But, when it is all said and done, his tweet proves that old cliche, "if you have nothing positive to say then perhaps it is better not to say anything at all." Or that other classic, "it is better to be thought of as a fool for five minutes rather than open your mouth and confirm it for a lifetime."

It is pretty sad that the Minister for Communication and Information knows diddly about both the primary elements of his brief. If he was in command of the elements then he would have known that there was no other possible outcome from putting a tweet out there like this than bad.

The Minister needs to exhibit a little class, and show a little remorse for making a joke of, and mocking those that are suffering with HIV / AIDS. Perhaps he could impose some community service hours on himself and go and work at a HIV / AIDS charity doing good work in Indonesia. I would highly recommend Yayasan Spiritia, they are doing good work. Perhaps, the Minister would learn a thing or two about some of the challenges that people living with HIV / AIDS face every single day in Indonesia, like struggling to be able to get a regular supply of affordable medications or simple discrimination.

The real question is whether the Minister has the testicular fortitude to man-up and admit that his joke was not a joke but rather it was nothing more than a chance for him to offend and pretend that it was all fun and games. My guess is the Minister will not be able to escape from his Perennial Klown Syndrome woes and try and redeem himself on Twitter while holding out hope that others will come to his rescue with piss poor support like, "lighten-up it was just a joke".

As I said, and many others will continue to say, there is nothing funny about HIV / AIDS.

Postscript:
The support for TitS can be found in some of the comments in response to the article at The Jakarta Post. It would seem that the claim is that the offending tweet is part of a much longer logical sequence that makes the tweet less offensive. The tweet is not TitS' personal belief but rather just a comment on, and relaying of, something said by a former Health Minister of Indonesia (Professor Sujudi).

However, it probably is worth pointing out that the series of tweets, to which the supportive commenter refers to, has a very distinct homophobic viewpoint suggesting that HIV /AIDS is a "gay" disease and represents God's choice of raining down destruction and death on those that practice "deviant" behaviours. The postscript was added about 40 minutes after the original post.

Disclaimer: Oh, and if anyone picked up on the PKS theme relating to the TitS...no offense is intended to any other organisation or group that uses the same letters to represent themselves. If you look at the accompanying photo you can see that the Minister has in fact got the "Krusty the Klown" (from "the Simpsons") thing happening.

World AIDS Day

How much longer must the wait be to find a cure?

USA & HIV / AIDS -- A Travel Decision...

It seems that the US has finally decided to make its decision to overturn the ban on HIV infected people travelling to the US a reality. President Obama has signed an order that will see the ban lifted from early next year. Hopefully, the other dozen or so countries that continue to ban HIV infected travellers will soon follow the US lead and remove the bans in their respective countries as well.

HIV / AIDS treatment has come a long way since the early eighties. So much so, that it is more a chronic illness than the death sentence it once was. People are living much longer with proper treatment, and the majority are able to live full lives and make lasting contributions to the communities in which they live. To discriminate against them on their HIV status is wrong.

Interestingly, there has not been a single HIV conference in the US since 1993. The ban on HIV+ travellers has meant that HIV+ researchers and activists would not have been able to attend to participate in any conference held. If you want to be the leader in any endeavour then you must act like the leader. This decision to remove the ban on HIV+ travellers is definitely a sign of leadership in the fight against HIV / AIDS.

Sexually Transmitted Infections -- Annual Surveillance Report

Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) are on the rise in Australia. The rise is currently being attributed to increased levels of risky sexual behaviour, and primarily this is unprotected sex. This is a scary thought. This post sort of follows on from the previous posts I wrote about the AIDS is a mass murderer campaign that has been launched in Germany.

The Annual Surveillance Report for 2009 can be downloaded from here. In fact, all the Surveillance Reports from 1997 can be accessed from this site as well. If one has an interest in the subject matter, then they are clearly worthwhile reading.

The report tells us a lot of things, but some of the figures highlight that rates of chlamydia infections increased by 10% over the previous year, infectious syphilis has reached epidemic proportions amongst gay men, and there were nearly 1000 new cases of HIV. The HIV cases at almost 1000 would not seem to be a large number, but it is still way too many. These figures suggest that the message has stopped getting through or people have become a whole lot more complacent about getting HIV. Complacency kills!

The data also shows that our indigenous brothers and sisters are coming into contact with STIs in increasingly large numbers. The data also highlights that intravenous drug users and homosexual men are afflicted in increasing numbers with HIV / AIDS, syphilis, and hepatitis. The chlamydia numbers are even more alarming as the show an increased in diagnosis from 14,082 in 1999 to 58,456 in 2008.

In another survey by Marie Stopes International of Australian school students found some interesting figures, including that just under half of the students surveyed had experienced oral sex. Even more interesting was that the majority of those did not consider oral sex to be sex. Sounds like a Bill Clinton moment to me, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" Which is true if one does not consider oral sex to climax and a subsequent spray of seminal fluid onto a dress, sex.

In another study conducted by the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health, and Society at La Trobe University, and also of Australian school students, found that one in four Year 10 students admitted to sexual intercourse and one in two students admitted as much by the time they were in year 12. I don't think it was this many when I was in high school. But, then again we were not conducting surveys of our friends either.

What does this tell us? It tells us that there is still a need for the safe sex message. The sooner 'we' refocus that message the sooner we can begin the work of protecting those who are not infected and begin devoting more time, money, and energy to finding cures.