AIDS victims are being buried alive in Papua-New Guinea

[Bluebear]

Some people with HIV/Aids in Papua New Guinea are being buried alive by their relatives, a health worker says. Margaret Marabe said families were taking the extreme action because they could no longer look after sufferers or feared catching the disease themselves.

Ms Marabe said she saw the "live burials" with her own eyes during a five-month trip to PNG's remote Southern Highlands. PNG is in the grip of an HIV/Aids epidemic - the worst in the region. "I saw three people with my own eyes. When they got very sick and people could not look after them, they buried them," she told reporters.

She described how one person called out "mama, mama" as the soil was being shovelled over their head. "I said, 'Why are they doing that?' And they said, 'If we let them live, stay in the same house, eat together and use or share utensils, we will contract the disease and we too might die.'" Villagers told her that such action was common, she said.

HIV/Aids is mostly spread in the country through heterosexual intercourse, and polygamy, rape and sexual violence are widespread. Those caught up in the epidemic are often thought to be the victims of witchcraft.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6965412.stm

[Lone_Star_Dem]

1. Wouldn't it be nice if we spent money on things like this rather than war?

Heartbreaking.

[Beaverhausen]

2. Very true

this is heartbreaking.

[redqueen]

3. Yes, it would be nice if profit weren't the only motive

for so many people.

[wicket]

4. K & R

Oh god :cry: :cry: :cry:.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. I really hate that phrase "AIDS victim"

The victimization is not from HIV but from ignorance and blind fear.

[Maraya1969]

16. I agree 100% I bet that as in Africa an "HIV" antibody test is not required

or even asked for when diagnosing AIDS. These people are literally being terrified to death.



I ain't answering any flames....................

[orleans]

6. oh god. n/t

[Megahurtz]

7. Horrid.

:wow:

[TahitiNut]

8. Sounds like "Republican Family Values" to me.

:puke: ... their version of "it takes a village"??

[LittleClarkie]

12. It takes a village came from a Democrat

not a Republican.

[TahitiNut]

15. Hence the words "their version". Read much?

:eyes:

[DeSwiss]

9. Oh my goodness...

...ignorance is our worst disease.

K&R

[formercia]

10. Religious superstition

Be it Animism or Xtianity.

It would be interesting to see how these legends get started.

Nothing like mixing ignorance with beliefs in something other than the facts.

[Bluebear]

11. Of course, the US could start an outreach program to Papua New Guinea.

You know, try to educate the people, try to get lifesaving HIV drugs to them... but I doubt there is oil there.

[formercia]

13. All this Administration would promote is abstinence.

Somehow, I don't think a bunch of Evangelical know-it-alls will make much of an impression on the locals.

[Thothmes]

18. Papua New Guinea

I would think that Australia and New Zealand would be better suited for that project. They are much closer to the problem.

[Canuckistanian]

14. You know, for the cost of ONE cruise missile

The entire native population of PNG could be educated on HIV/AIDS.

And you'd probably have enough left over to build a school or two.

[Heywood J]

17. Oh, I completely misread that...

I could have sworn that meant "they could all be taken out with one cruise missile - that'll teach them", the first few times I read it.

[Katherine Brengle]

19. There are no words.

The one thing I am in favor of the developed world exporting to other countries is education about things like this, but of course that's stunted because *some people* who have a lot of power in this country refuse to look at the reality of the world being uneducated about sex, safe sex, disease and health.