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SOUTH PACIFIC: Pacific Episcopal Conference taking surprisingly progressive line in dealing with AIDS in paradise

Kunda Dixit

SUVA, Fiji, Jul 7 1995 (IPS) - When David Konz, a soldier in the Papua New Guinea army, was discharged because he had AIDS they sent him home to his mountain village to die.

But when he got there, his entire community and clan ostracised him — except for his mother, sister and a Catholic nun.

Sister Rose Bernadette had been alarmed by the exponential rise in the number of AIDS cases in the Papua New Guinea highlands where she worked. She took David under her wing and encouraged people in the community to talk and show interest in him.

“David felt he had wasted his life, and wanted to do something useful,” Sister Bernadette recalls. So she arranged for him to speak to young people, soldiers, policemen and their wives about AIDS.

Although the South Pacific is the last remaining region in the world where AIDS has not made a big impact, experts in the region say it is only a question of time. Wryly, they call AIDS “an epidemic with a future”.

Although media and churches remain squeamish about discussing AIDS, many religious groups here have supported recent programmes to spread awareness.

David Konz died last year, but not before the community had welcomed him back to the fold. And, thanks to one Catholic nun, thousands of people in surrounding villages had learnt about how to avoid getting AIDS.

Says Sister Bernadette: “My work is to help people, not to judge them. The loving care and concern of their families, and the support of their friends and community is what people with HIV need most.”

Here in Fiji, health workers say wives of soldiers are in most danger, and are the ones who come most frequently to health centres for help. Six babies with HIV who came to the centre last year were all born to women married to soldiers or policemen.

Some Fijian servicemen are said to be among the 150 soldiers from all over the world diagnosed as being HIV positive at the end of the U.N. peacekeeping operations in Cambodia in 1992.

At a regional AIDS meeting here of 40 Church leaders from 16 Pacific countries last year, social workers said militarisation was a major factor in the spread of AIDS and sexually-transmitted diseases in the region.

They said infected wives faced the threat of being beaten if they brought the matter to their husband’s attention, and often got re-infected.

 
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