HIV RISING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

The National 16 November 2017

Regional manager of the National AIDS Council advises that there are more than 47,000 people living with HIV. 

Of these only 52% are on ARV drugs. That means that 48% of those infected are moving slowly to AIDS and death. It is important for the family to help the loved one to receive ongoing antiretroviral drugs with no breaks of even one day.

With no ARV, they will move into dementia over several years as the CD4 count drops below 150. That will mean that they lose weight as the body protein is eaten away, lose hair with broken finger and toe nails.

They will suffer delusions and hallucinations that bring fear to the sufferer and families. A sign of dementia is fear of being killed by evil spirits and violent people. 

The sufferer will wake up at night with the hallucination that there are people crowded into the bedroom. Family members will be woken and afraid of the screams. 

One young woman believed that an old woman waited in a tree outside the house as a black crow ready to kill her. 

As the onset of HIV and AIDS can take several years, the family may be concerned that the loved one is the victim of sorcery. Some innocent person has to die.

Life will be extended with the sufferer following Positive Living with love, peace, family, fruit, vegetables, clean water, exercise and rejection of beer, home brew, tobacco and marijuana.