Burying AIDS sufferers Alive - I hope this is wrong!

[kingwilly]

PNG Aids victims 'buried alive'

Raising awareness of HIV/Aids in PNG is a difficult task

Some people with HIV/Aids in Papua New Guinea are being buried alive by their relatives, a health worker says.
Margaret Marabe said families were taking the extreme action because they could no longer look after sufferers or feared catching the disease themselves.
Ms Marabe said she saw the "live burials" with her own eyes during a five-month trip to PNG's remote Southern Highlands.
PNG is in the grip of an HIV/Aids epidemic - the worst in the region.
Officials estimate that 2% of the six million population are infected, but campaigners believe the figure is much higher.
HIV diagnoses have been rising by around 30% each year since 1997, according to a UN Aids report.
Ignorance
Margaret Marabe, a known local activist in PNG, carried out an awareness campaign in the Tari area of the Southern Highlands earlier this year.
"I saw three people with my own eyes. When they got very sick and people could not look after them, they buried them," she told reporters.


She described how one person called out "mama, mama" as the soil was being shovelled over their head.
Villagers told her that such action was common, she said.
HIV/Aids is mostly spread in the country through heterosexual intercourse, and polygamy, rape and sexual violence are widespread.
Those caught up in the epidemic are often thought to be the victims of witchcraft.
Women accused of being witches have been tortured and murdered by mobs holding them responsible for the epidemic, according to officials and researchers.
Church leaders have described Aids patients being thrown off bridges or left to starve in back gardens in the past, the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney reports.
Ms Marabe, who works for the Igat Hope organisation in the capital, Port Moresby, said people in remote parts of the country remained ignorant about HIV/Aids and urged the government to take action.
"There are no voluntary counselling training centres in Tari. There are also no training programmes on HIV," she was quoted by PNG's Post-Courier newspaper as saying.
PNG's Secretary for Health Dr Nicholas Mann admitted to the BBC in an interview last year that the multitude of cultures and languages in the country made it difficult to get the HIV/Aids message across. But he said Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare had brought the issue under his remit, and the government was working with agencies on a co-ordinated approach to tackling the crisis.

[mrsquirrel]

I would doubt it. PNG is a messed up country. I looked at a volunteer position there three years ago or so. After much research i decided that my life was wortha bit more than that.

[Lily]

HIV/Aids is mostly spread in the country through heterosexual intercourse, and polygamy, rape and sexual violence are widespread.

Dont tell the 'hetrosexual HIV is a myth' believers this.

[Lily]

I would doubt it. PNG is a messed up country. I looked at a volunteer position there three years ago or so. After much research i decided that my life was wortha bit more than that.

You made the right decision. When I was still nursing, several of the nuns attached to the hospital who were nursing in a mission hospital in PNG, were gang raped and bashed to within an inch of their lives.

The youngest was 58 and the eldest was 74.

The nuns had probably delivered some of the rapists and had treated them all their lives.

[Mid]

nanosecond outa the trees .....................

[mrsquirrel]

I didn't like the high risk of kidnap or being caught in tribal wars or being killed because I brought bad mojo or you get the picture. Any country that still has people writing inter -tribal IOU's on banana leaves might still be a bit rough.

[Cujo]

nanosecond outa the trees .....................

Still in the fucking trees if you ask me.
When Bethoven was composing music on a piano (what a piece of engineering), Cambodians were building Ankor Wat, Chinese were navigating the oceans and building great walls, what were blacks the world over doing?

[The Gentleman Scamp]

^ I love to see people with the guts to be provocative.

By the way, Ankor - Beethoven? He wasn't that old.

[Cujo]

I wasn't suggesting that.

[klongmaster]

Officials estimate that 2% of the six million population are infected, but campaigners believe the figure is much higher. HIV diagnoses have been rising by around 30% each year since 1997, according to a UN Aids report.

excuse my ignorance but if you start at zero in 1997 and increase 30% every year HTF do you end up with 2%?..

[kingwilly]

2% plus 30% of 2%.....

not 30% of population

[Frankenstein]

nanosecond outa the trees .....................

Still in the fucking trees if you ask me.
When Bethoven was composing music on a piano (what a piece of engineering), Cambodians were building Ankor Wat, Chinese were navigating the oceans and building great walls, what were blacks the world over doing?

Making sweet lurrrve.

[keda]

Says much for evolution, that spent millions of years developing a brain the size of a cantaloupe, with a capacity to analyse and discover and invent, and then forgot to add an on switch.

[Mid]

what were blacks the world over doing?

blame the romans , they failed to export to that part of the world

hence , I'm off to get the water ma is a days labour ......................