"The number of HIV/AIDS infected people in East Kalimantan up to the end of 2010 had reached 1,725, while actually this figure is like the top of an iceberg in the ocean, which means many others still remained undetected," head of the East Kalimantan health agency M Syafak Hanum said here Friday.
Of the 1,725 sufferers, 411 had been declared suffering from AIDS, 107 of them had died, and the rest had HIV.
The the number of sufferers continued to increase each year, and has spread to other areas in the province previously undetected.
In Samarinda, he added, 728 people had already been declared to have HIV/AIDS, including 178 positively, with 44 deaths.
Some 408 of the 186 patients in Balikpapan had died, in Tarakan there were 289 sufferers, including 20 with AIDS and 13 had died.
According to a survey, 40 pct of the 500 thousand to 600 thousand sufferers were young people aged 15 to 24, and 64 pct of them are female.(*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
