AUSTRALIA TO SPEND A$100 MILLION TO HELP FIGHT HIV IN INDONESIA

           Jakarta - Australia has announced A$100 million (about Rp800 billion) partnership to help combat HIV in Indonesia, according to the Australian Embassy's website in Jakarta on Friday (27/07).

The program aims to prevent and limit the spread of HIV, to improve the quality of life for people living with HIV and to alleviate its socio-economic impacts in Indonesia, it said.

            Without an increased response, it is estimated that HIV will result in at least 1.5 million deaths in Indonesia by 2025. Outlying areas of Indonesia are expected to be hardest hit, with prevalence there estimated to increase to 7 per cent of the adult population by 2025.

            Australian assistance will be focused on strengthening Indonesia's capacity to lead, plan and manage their HIV response; supporting the development and implementation of an effective and sustainable response to HIV in Papua and West Papua provinces, where the prevalence of HIV infection exceeds the national average.

            The assistance will also be concentrated on strengthening HIV programmes associated with people who inject drugs; and supporting the development of an effective and sustainable approach to HIV in prisons.

            It said the commitment of the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for HIV 2008-2015 builds on the achievements of Australia's HIV support to Indonesia over the past 12 years.

            The commitment will strengthen leadership, policy and legal frameworks and program planning and coordination; improve prevention approaches, particularly in Papua and West Papua; deliver services, using the harm reduction approach, through public health systems; and provide policy support at the national level for the implementation of the Indonesian goverment's HIV and Prisons Plan.

            The Australian Government had committed to spend A$1 billion (around Rp 8 trillion) by 2010 in the global fight against HIV, as announced at the Third Ministerial Meeting on HIV/AIDS held in Sydney on July 23, 2007.

            By the end of this financial year, Australia expects to have spent about half a billion Australian dollars on international HIV programs since the start of the decade. The new commitment increases efforts to combat HIV across the Asia-Pacific including in the hardest hit countries, PNG and Indonesia.

            In addition to Australia's growing commitment to Indonesia, Australia recently fulfilled its pledge to contribute A$75 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Global Fund estimates that its programs have saved the lives of more than 1.8 million people world-wide with more than one million people treated with anti-retrovirals.

            Australian assistance to Indonesia is widely recognised for its many positive contributions to Indonesia's response to HIV, notably, the first prison methadone treatment program for heroin users in any Asian country.

            A scaling-up of a comprehensive response to HIV and injecting drug use including the delivery of HIV prevention programmes from 63 community health centres; building the capacity of NGO partners and provincial and national AIDS Commissions; and garnering broader donor support for Indonesia's HIV response (Antara, 28/07/07).