Mission & Justice

28/4/08

Providing practical help, care and love to people living with HIV/AIDS is the best way to reduce the infection rate in the country, says manager of Friends Foundation Inc, Rory Sitapai. Mr Sitapai is also the co-ordinator of the Henari Dalana Ita Hanamoa (which means improving our care, in the Motu language), which is implemented by the foundation under the community and home-based palliative care (CHPC) program with support from the Family Health International (FHI). Since the program was introduced in Port Moresby and parts of Central Province, 400 people with all sorts of illnesses, including those with HIV and AIDS in 92 sites, were identified, assisted by health workers, referred to counsellors and whose basic human needs were met.

(more…)

16/4/08

The National Research Institute has been given the go-ahead to begin monitoring and studying the behaviour of people and HIV/AIDS under a three-year programme which will cost more than K3 million. Instruments to effect this three-year research work were signed by heads of the Health Department and the institute in Port Moresby yesterday paving way for the setting up of a HIV/AIDS behavioural office. Experts said information collated will be incorporated into the National HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Surveillance Plan 2008-2010.The signing of a memorandum of Understanding yesterday between the National Research Institute (NRI) and the National Department of Health formalises the beginning of a HIV/AIDS behavioral surveillance research to be carried out by NRI.

(more…)

15/4/08

The Council of Ministers yesterday decided to expand the Kingdom’s premarital medical test program, adding new tests for contagious diseases such AIDS and Hepatitis B & C, Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani said. He said the weekly Cabinet meeting, which was chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, also emphasized Saudi Arabia’s rejection of foreign and regional dominance on some Arab countries.“The Cabinet decided to develop the premarital medical test program in order to maintain a healthy marriage,” Madani told the Saudi Press Agency.

(more…)

14/4/08

Young people in Honiara can now access improved STI and HIV services at the Rove and Kukum clinics run by Honiara City Council. Over the past six months eighteen Registered Nurses and Nurses Aids attended training run by Save the Children’s HIV Prevention Program regarding adolescent health and the guiding principles of youth friendly HIV and STI services. Save the Children is running this project with the support from AusAID. Both clinics now have qualified Voluntary Confidential Counseling and Testing (VCCT) staff and private, comfortable rooms in which to conduct the counseling of confidential health matters of young people.

(more…)

Zara Kanu; 14/4/08

Papua New Guinea has a very high rate of people living with HIV/AIDS, ranking fourth in the Oceania region.This should allow the Education department to give this issue prominence in its curriculum, director for Enga University of Papua New Guinea centre Raphael Tombe has said when presenting his abstract at the UPNG during the PNG Association for Distance Education biennial conference. The abstract entitled Zero effectiveness on HIV/AIDS awareness and the need for a separate HIV/AIDS curriculum in Papua New Guinea showed, through research, that there was a limited subject content coverage regarding HIV/AIDS in the formal educational curriculum in practice and the regular face to face educational approach benefits only a small portion of the youth population.

(more…)

4/4/08

More than two million children worldwide were living with the HIV virus in 2007, most of whom were infected before they were born, a joint study by United Nations humanitarian organisations said Thursday. Some 290,000 children under the age of 15 died of AIDS last year and 12.1 million children in sub-Saharan Africa lost one or both parents to the disease, according to the “Children and AIDS” report by the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and UNAIDS.

(more…)

4/4/08

Two church leaders have expressed their disappointment over reports that a church group is stopping people with HIV from taking their drugs. Chairman for Port Moresby Ministers Fraternal Reverend Robert Sanasi and chairman for the Faith-based organisations Pastor Daniel Hewali said all churches needed to work in unity and as one voice rather than one little group doing its own thing.

(more…)

Kenneth Denby; 31/3/08

The authorities in Burma are risking lives and increasing the dangers of an HIV epidemic in the country by preventing foreign aid organisations from giving crucial help to patients suffering from AIDS. The ban is part of Burma’s growing hostility towards international organisations since the mass demonstrations by monks and political activists that were suppressed violently by the junta last September. The Government has prevented aid workers and diplomats from visiting some projects, made it difficult for them to secure visas and expelled the head of the UN mission in Burma for drawing attention to the humanitarian catastrophe facing the country. An HIV/AIDS project run by the opposition National League for Democracy on behalf of its detained leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been devastated by the arrest of its leaders and organisers by security authorities.

(more…)

Kevin Pamba; 28/3/03

Students must delay having sex until proper marriage as a sure way of avoiding HIV/AIDS, a person living with the virus said this week. “Delay sex until marriage,” Joe Egu, anti-HIV/AIDS campaigner, told fourth year health management students of the Divine Word University in Madang on Wednesday. “Don’t come to this level I am in now. Sex is not something to experiment by young people,”he said. “It is a blessed and sanctified activity of God to be enjoyed only in marriage,” he added. Mr Egu told the students to leave sex till they had completed their studies, found a job and got married.

(more…)

Juanita Sol Goma; 28/3/08

The Papua provincial AIDS commission (PPAC) of Indonesia has sought an understanding with the Papua New Guinea National AIDS Council (PNGNAC) to work together to combat the spread of the disease along the common borders. A team of officers has arrived in Port Moresby to hold talks with PNGNAC and share experiences and ideas in the campaign against HIV\AIDS. Chairman for PPAC Pangeran Silvanus Ukung said HIV\AIDS is now a bigger problem along the border areas and need Indonesia and PNG to cooporate. He said their way of dealing with the disease was different from us, in the sense that their country treated HIV\AIDS as a health problem, while we in PNG see it as a development problem that is affecting the country as a whole.

(more…)