The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (PNG) says he is confident the country will be “on top” of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Speaking to SBS reporter Kathy Novak, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill says that while the disease has been a concern for many years, it has now been stabilised.
“AIDS has been a concern to Papua New Guinea for many many years,” he tells SBS. “It's now been stabilised and it's on the decline in our country because of the awareness that we have been promoting in our country.”
But one of the main obstacles to garnering greater awareness across the country, O'Neill says, is old-fashioned beliefs. “Where there's traditional beliefs still going on, it sometimes pretty hard for the message to trickle down to the remote communities throughout the countries.
“But I'm pleased to stay that we are now on top of the issues and hopefully the decline will continue for many years.”
He also told SBS that PNG is looking to redistribute resources from Australian aid's program towards building better infrastructure such as world-class hospitals.
“Some of the programs that the Australian government is assisting on are quite good and they are producing results,” he says. “But there are some where we are distributing the resources too thinly across many sectors, not only in health but education and so forth.
“We need to strengthen a sustainable infrastructure so that will maintain these services for a longer time.”
December 1 is UN World AIDS Day.
Watch the full interview on YouTube:
