Indonesia Launching HIV/AIDS Program To Target Most-Affected Provinces
Indonesia plans to use a $130 million grant from the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for a program that will focus on the 12 provinces most affected by HIV/AIDS in the country, BBC News reports. According to BBC News, for the program to be successful, it will have to focus on marginalized populations -- such as commercial sex workers, injection drug users and men who have sex with men -- that have "not always been well-targeted in the past."
Bob Magnani, country head of Family Health International, said that Indonesia does not have a history of nongovernmental organizations, "much less with experience and skills to be effective in the short run." Magnani said, "One of the big dangers with Global Fund -- with the vast amounts of money and ambitions to cover many, many provinces -- is that you spread the resources very thinly." He added that when addressing infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, "you have to attack the point of transmission very aggressively, concentrate your resources at those key hotspots."
According to BBC News, recent data suggest that more than 50% of the country's IDUs are living with HIV and that the virus is spreading faster through sexual contact. The new program aims to reach 80% of people in the country's most affected areas and produce behavior change in 60% of targeted people. Nafsiyah Mboi -- head of the National AIDS Commission -- said the new program will involve three national agencies and 72 districts in a largely decentralized and populated country. She said, "I'm from the old order. ... So if we say 'A' in Jakarta, 'A' goes down all the way to the family level. That's not possible anymore; we have to do advocacy with each and every one" (Williamson, BBC News, 2/2).