HIV/AIDS PREVENTION IN PRISONS HAMPERED BY SHORTAGE OF WORKERS

Prevention of HIV/AIDS in penitentiaries across the country has been
hampered by a shortage of medical workers and the prevalence of
injection-drug users in prisons.

Head of the drug abuse supervision division of the Justice and Human
Rights Ministry, Sihabuddin, said the limited number of medical
workers in prisons impeded HIV/AIDS prevention, despite the
availability of mini labs in some prisons to conduct blood tests.

He said a provisional solution to the problem was to forge
partnerships with nearby hospitals and community health centers. "At
least it could alleviate the problem," Sihabuddin said at the
four-day National HIV/AIDS Meeting in Surabaya, East Java, last week.

He said HIV/AIDS prevention should become a priority in prisons,
considering the large number of infections among convicts, especially
those with drug-related histories.

Sihabuddin said that of the 32,000 drug-related convicts across the
country, 20 to 30 percent were infected with HIV/AIDS.

"Many of them are still sharing needles," he said.

Prisoners usually obtain their drug supplies through visitors and
postal pigeons, or by bribing officers and having supplies tossed
over prison walls.

"They use various ways to smuggle drugs into the prison. Many guards
have been caught for drug dealing in prison," he said.

Kate Dolan from the Australian-based Drug and Alcohol Research Center
said she was not surprised by the high rate of infection in prisons,
caused by interaction between those infected with HIV/AIDS and those
free of the disease.

She said many countries have not paid adequate attention to the problem.

"Surveys conducted in prisons in 20 Southeast Asian countries showed
that prisons in 12 countries are susceptible to the spread of
HIV/AIDS, eight countries to IDUs and five countries exposed to both
IDUs and HIV/AIDS," Kate said.

In Indonesia, the number of convicts living with HIV doubled in 2002,
likely due to the country's lack of special prisons for drug-related offenders.

Kate said there was only one prison for drug-related convicts in the
country, located in Jakarta.

"According to our research, there has been an increase in the number
of convicts living with HIV," she said, while raising the need for
concrete actions as a means of preventing further spread of the disease.

Nafsiah Mboi, chairperson of the National AIDS Prevention Commission,
admitted the prevalence of high rates of HIV/AIDS in prisons as well
the shortage of medical workers.

"We are aware of the condition and are slowly trying to search for
solutions through cooperation with the Justice and Human Rights
Ministry. This could include training courses for penitentiary
officers," she said.

Even though the commission's efforts have not yet yielded a positive
result, Nafsiah said they would be continued. She added that the
commission had also cooperated with the Health Ministry by obliging
university medical students to conduct their field studies at penitentiaries.

"The Health Ministry has agreed to the idea. Starting this year
penitentiaries will be used by students to do field studies as a
requirement for graduating as a physician," she said.