Many junior high school students in Riau have AIDS

The young HIV/AIDS carriers are between 15 to 24 years old

Pekanbaru (ANTARA News) - At least 49 out of 573 HIV/AIDS carriers in Riau province are young people and some are junior high school students,HM Wardan, Head of Riau provincial education office said.

"The young HIV/AIDS carriers are between 15 to 24 years old," Wardan said here on Wednesday, adding that many of them are university students.

Wardan also said that the majority of them had heterosexual relations or are drug users by injection.

Nationally, according to him, the 148 HIV-AIDS patients are aged 15 to 19 years, and those aged 20 to 29 years totaled 11,438 patients.

In a bid to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, school teachers and regional education offices as well as parents need to be empowered to cope with the problem.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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