Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA News) - A total of 33 foreigners who once visited or stayed in the Indonesian tourist resort province of Bali suffered from HIV/AIDS, a local AIDS Commission (KPA) said here on Wednesday.

Dr Mangku Karmaya, prevention working group coordinator of Bali`s KPA, said the data were collected from 1987 to 2013.

The citizenships of sixteen of the 33 sufferers were not known. Seventeen others came from Timor Leste and the United States (respectively four people), France (two), Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, Europe, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland.

Mangku Karma said the first foreigner to die of AIDS in Bali in 1987 came from the Netherlands.

The number of HIV/AIDS suffers in Bali in the last 27 years has reached 7,291, of which 3,459 were HIVE carriers and 3,832 were AIDS suffers.

He said that the number of suffers indicated that HIV/AIDS cases in Bali have spread to rural areas, expressing concern with the growing number of HIV/AIDS cases, the number of HIV/AIDS cases in Bali has increased from year to year.

Most or 75 percent of the disease was attributable to heterosexual relationships, and 11.08 percent to drugs, 4.16 percent to homosexual and the rest to other causes, he said.

He said most of the victim are in the productive age groups -- around 40.19 percent or 2,930 cases in the age group of 20-29 years and 36.33 percent or 2,649 cases in the age group of 30-39 years.

He said various steps have been made to make people more aware of the danger of the disease hoping the cases could be reduced in the future.

(A014/B003)

Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2013