PNG heading for HIV disaster, experts warn

BRISBANE - Papua New Guinea is heading for an "HIV disaster" with levels of the disease on the scale of the worst African countries, an Australian expert warns.

Infectious diseases physician John McBride, of James Cook University, said HIV transmission was accelerating in PNG with the number of people infected estimated to be in the range of 28,000 - around three and a half times official figures.

In contrast, about 14,000 Australians have HIV/Aids in a country with four times the population of PNG.

Professor McBride was commenting on a study in the latest issue of Emergency Medicine Australasia by West Australian Chris Curry, a visiting professor in emergency medicine at the University of Papua New Guinea.

Dr Curry and colleagues tested 300 blood samples collected in the emergency department of the Port Moresby General Hospital finding an HIV prevalence of 18 per cent.

They said the high rates of HIV infection presented a hazard to staff because of the risk of needle-stick injury in overcrowded conditions with insufficient resources to practise recommended precautions.

"Our findings and those of other investigators indicate that there is the potential in PNG for an economic and humanitarian disaster," the researchers wrote.

"As PNG's nearest and wealthiest neighbour, the extent to which Australia responds to this epidemic will be critical to minimise its impact."

In a corresponding editorial, Prof McBride said economic projections for the impact of HIV on the PNG economy included reductions in the workforce of between 13 and 38 per cent by 2020.

He spent three months working at the Port Moresby hospital last year under a pilot World Health Organisation program, in cooperation with AusAid, to introduce anti-retroviral drugs, finding many patients with obvious signs of HIV were not being tested.

"I soon realised that things we take for granted in Australia - private spaces where we can talk to patients, assurances of confidentiality, lack of fear and stigma and laboratory turn around times measured in hours, not days, were real barriers to achieving accurate diagnosis," Prof McBride wrote.

Australia has pledged $600 ($665) million in the next five years to fight HIV in the region.

Prof McBride said he hoped to see more money spent on encouraging people to come forward for diagnosis and treatment.

"People won't come forward if they don't think there's any hope for them," he said in an interview.

"A lot of people don't get tested because HIV has, until recently been associated with a pretty dismal prognosis.

"These days in Australia, we think of HIV as a chronic manageable condition a little bit like diabetes.

"I think the effect of expanding treatments in PNG would be that people would be more inclined to come forward to have testing.

"We think the treatments help promote testing."

- AAP