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Papua signals move to microchip HIV carriers


Indonesia's Papua province is set to pass a bylaw that requires some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips in a bid to prevent them infecting others, a lawmaker said on Saturday.Under the bylaw, which has caused uproar among human rights activists, patients who had shown "actively sexual behaviour" could be implanted with a microchip to monitor their activity, lawmaker John Manangsang said."It's a simple technology.


A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities, " Manangsang said.If a patient with HIV/AIDS was found to have infected a healthy person, there would be a penalty, he said without elaborating.The Jakarta Post newspaper on Saturday quoted Constan Karma, the head of Papua's National AIDS Commission, as saying the plan violated human rights.The local parliament was expected to introduce the controversial legislation in Papua, which lies in Indonesia's easternmost fringe, by end of this month, Manangsang said.The number of HIV/AIDS cases per 100,000 people in Papua is nearly 20 times the national average in Indonesia, according to a government study in 2007.Health experts say the disease has been spreading rapidly from prostitutes to housewives in the past years.High rates of promiscuity, rituals in some Papuan tribes where partner swapping takes place, poor education about AIDS and lack of condoms are among factors that cause the spread of the disease there. 4. ABC NewsPapua signals move to microchip HIV carriersPosted Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:46pm AEST A doctor says lawmakers in the Indonesian province of Papua are mulling the selective use of chip implants in HIV carriers to monitor their behaviour in a bid to keep them from infecting others.John Manangsang, a medical doctor who is helping to prepare a new health care regulation bill for Papua's provincial Parliament, says unusual measures are needed to combat the virus."We in the government in Papua have to think hard on ways to provide protection to people from the spread of the disease," Dr Manangsang said."Some of the infected people experience a change of behaviour and can turn more aggressive and would not think twice of infecting others," he said, adding that lawmakers are considering various sanctions for these people."Among one of the means being considered is the monitoring of those infected people who can pose a danger to others."The use of chip implants is one of the ways to do so, but only for those few who turn aggressive and clearly continue to disregard what they know about the disease and spread the virus to others."But Dr Manangsang says a decision is still a long way off.The head of the Papua chapter of the National AIDS Commission, Constant Karma, reportedly slammed the proposal as a violation of human rights."People with HIV/AIDS are not like sharks under observation so that they have to be implanted with microchips to monitor their movements," he told the Jakarta Post."Any form of identification of people with HIV/AIDS violates human rights."
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