RadioNZ, 7 April 2014
An Australian researcher says the current response to HIV/AIDS in West Papua is being dominated by an Indonesian perspective and international models.
Jenny Munro is a cultural anthropologist at the Australian National University, and been involved in recent studies on HIV/AIDS in the Indonesian province.
She told Bridget Tunnicliffe the virus is considered to be at epidemic levels in West Papua.
JENNY MUNRO: HIV in West Papua is considered to be at a generalised epidemic level, that means that it's affecting at least 2.5 percent of the adult population and the rates according to government epidemiological study is more like 3 percent among youth aged 15 to 24. However others scholars have said 'you know we really are not confident that these recorded rates are an accurate reflection and it could be much worse than what we currently know'. So once it gets to 2.5 percent of the general population that's considered an epidemic level.
BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: Did your research separate the indigenous population from the immigrant population?
JM: So our research wasn't an epidemiological study, that's more of a government study that has shown that there's more like a 2.5% prevalence of HIV among the indigenous population and perhaps more like 1.8% among the migrant Indonesian population in West Papua. So we are saying that this is kind of a problem that's really critically affecting indigenous Papuans disproportionately so and more so than the Indonesian migrant population.
BT: Why do you think it has a higher prevalence among the indigenous population?
JM: This is actually a really complex issue and there's many many factors; there is the fact that indigenous Papuans tend to live in more rural and remote areas, that's a big issue so in West Papua province, so there's two provinces there since 2003 and in West Papua province 70 percent of the population still lives in rural areas. And there really are very limited HIV information and testing and treatment services outside major cities so that's an issue. Another big issue is that Papuan expertise, Papuan research, Papuan experiences haven't really so far been very well engaged in the response to HIV so we have a lot of approaches to HIV that are not particularly culturally informed, not necessarily sensitive to local context. So one of the aspects of this research was to look at what Papuan NGOs are actually doing in this field, how are they making HIV more locally relevant and culturally informed approaches. So for instance in Wamena a city in the central highlands of Papua province there's an indigenous run clinic which is actually pretty unique in West Papua and it operates according to its own standards in terms of what they see as appropriate care for their indigenous clientele. Wamena stands out as a place where this is happening but there's many other sites around West Papua where it's not happening where sort of the Indonesian perspective and international models often put forward by donors are still setting the agenda so to speak.
Originally aired on Dateline Pacific, Monday 7 April 2014
Source: RadioNZ