Delegates on a study tour to PNG from 8-15 April 2006 went to the heart of the matter, visiting villages, community projects, hospitals and schools. Above: NZPPD Chair Steve Chadwick and Australian Labour MP Duncan Kerr at a remedial farm for young men in Port Moresbey. Below: Dr Paul Hutchison with pupils at Zumara Primary School in Lae, which has 300 students, and no electricity or water.

Unified government leadership is critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Papua New Guinea (PNG), including open, multi-party leadership on stopping the spread of HIV and AIDS. This is one of the key themes that emerged during the MP study tour to PNG from 8-15 April 2006. NZPPD Chair Steve Chadwick, Vice-Chair Paul Hutchison and member Tim Barnett returned on Saturday 15 April from the week-long visit that focused on the MDGs, and the importance of good sexual and reproductive health if they are to be achieved in the Pacific. Australian Federal Labour MP Duncan Kerr also participated, as well as journalists from TVNZ'S One News, the New Zealand Herald and the Listener, who will file stories from the visit.
Building on a collaborative relationship formed during the last MP study tour to Asia in 2004, the MPs met with Dame Carol Kidu, Minister for Community Development and PNG's only woman MP. The delegates also met with Dr Puka Temu, the Minister assisting the Prime Minister on HIV/AIDS, who has called for 100 per cent condom use to help halt the epidemic. As well as official meetings, delegates went to the heart of the matter as they met and talked with sex workers, visited hospitals, schools, villages and non-government organisations. Steve said there is much good work being done at a community level, with real leaders heading NGOs such as the PNG Family Health Association. But to build on this, there is a need for systems strengthening, better accountability, and integration of sectors, she said.
"It was evident during our visit that corruption at all levels of government, from central to local, is hindering HIV/AIDS prevention and other efforts to improve the lives of PNG's people. In terms of HIV/AIDS, PNG is at crisis point - it's time to ensure funds go where they need to go and to stop the rhetoric."
Political leadership is also needed to combat the stigma and discrimination around HIV/AIDS that is helping fuel the epidemic, Steve said.

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The study tour was funded by the Asia Pacific Alliance for the International Conference on Population and Development (APA/ICPD). 

Pacific looks to Asia on how to combat HIV/AIDS

New Zealand and Pacific parliamentarians visited Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in April on a 10-day study tour focusing on the successful management of HIV/AIDS. New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development (NZPPD) members Steve Chadwick, Lynne Pillay and Metiria Turei and Pacific parliamentarians Hon Dr Talalelei Tuitama (Samoa), Hon Asaeli Masicala (Fiji) and Lady Carol Kidu (Papua New Guinea) participated. Steve Chadwick provided the following report.

Above all, this study tour brought home the reality of HIV/AIDS. Our group visited a range of care situations, witnessing the face of HIV/AIDS in all its tragedy.  In Cambodia the enormity of the problem was evident at a hospital overwhelmed by the need to care for more than 60 critically ill people in a ward with the capacity for 20. In Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, our group visited an orphanage of 60 children and babies, all HIV positive.

However, in meeting with a number of providers, Asia MPs and officials, we also saw a positive side to the management of HIV/AIDS in Asia. Thailand and Cambodia offered good examples of what can be accomplished with a targeted prevention programme. In the 1990s both these countries identified sex work as the key source of new infections, mounting pragmatic and well-funded campaigns – aimed at clients and sex workers – warning of the risks of being involved in sex work, and encouraging 100% condom use. As a result, HIV prevalence rates have fallen dramatically in Thailand. What is now evident in confronting HIV/AIDS is that a multi-pronged approach is needed to target the mainstream population whom HIV/AIDS is now affecting. At particular risk are the wives of high-risk men, whose only risk was to marry a man they believed to be faithful. Babies and children are also vulnerable to transmission through childbirth, breastfeeding, contaminated blood transfusions and medical equipment, and sexual abuse.

There is much being done at a community level to help people affected by HIV/AIDS. For example, we met with Buddhists for Development, an organisation in Cambodia that places monks into social service, counseling and home care situations.

The trip was also an opportunity to build an understanding of how the pandemic might develop in the Pacific. With latest figures placing the number of people in the Pacific living with HIV/AIDS at 10,000 (likely to be 10 times higher due to under-reporting) the stage is set for an expanding and widespread HIV pandemic in the region. However, because prevalence levels remain low currently, there now exists a unique opportunity to curb the spread of the virus before it is too late.  Our visit showed the effectiveness of early intervention, and the very limited window of opportunity. It also demonstrated ways in which Asia, Pacific and New Zealand MPs can work together on the issue of HIV/AIDS.

The study tour was funded by the Asia Pacific Alliance for the International Conference on Population and Development (APA/ICPD).