SERIAN: The number of women HIV cases in Sarawak have increased by eight per cent up to last October and most of the patients were unaware that they had been infected until they were screened.

State Health Department director Dr Mohd Kamil Hassan, said until October this year, 87 HIV cases have been recorded and 32 per cent of this total were women.

“This is an eight per cent rise from last year,” he told reporters after opening the state-level World AIDS Day celebration here yesterday.

He said most of these patients found out that they were infected after being screened and by that time the disease was in its final stage.

“HIV in Sarawak affects both urban and rural people and 72 per cent of the cases were transmitted through heterosexual relationships,” he said.

Although the majority of cases occurred in adults, he said in Sarawak, children too were infected through transmission from their mothers.

“The number of infected children is not very high but the department is giving due attention to them and other HIV patients to prolong their lives,” he said.

On an average, 100 to 120 people in Sarawak were infected with AIDS annually of which 20 to 23 would succumb to death, Dr Kamil said.

“Since 1989 until now, Sarawak has recorded 898 HIV cases and this gave an average of 100 to 120 people being infected with the disease every year,” he told reporters.

Based on racial breakdown, he said, AIDS was most common among the Sarawakian Bumiputera (288 cases), followed by Chinese (217 cases) and Malays (127 cases). While the remaining cases were foreigners.

According to Dr Kamil, the disease happened more frequently among men (677 cases) than women (221 cases) and so far 190 ended in death.

“The Health Department has sufficient allocation to provide health services to HIV patients and control the transmission of the disease.

“But what was lacking in Sarawak is that we have very few non-governmental organisation (NGO) which could help us implement AIDS related programmes.

“In Sarawak, there are only two and both are located in Kuching,” he pointed out.

Therefore, he hoped more NGOs could be set up to facilitate the department’s efforts to control and combat the spread of AIDS in Sarawak.

State Health Department deputy director Dr Faizul Mansoor, and Samarahan division health officer Dr Jamilah Hashim were also present.

This year’s celebration was the 21st in which a wide variety of AIDS awareness activities were held. Among them were health checks, workshops, seminars and stage shows.