Word: papua
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Several years ago in the town of Merauke, on the southern coast of Papua province in Indonesia, a young woman was diagnosed with HIV. Upon learning that she had been infected by her boyfriend, according to a local doctor, the woman decided to take "revenge." She began sleeping with as many men as possible, asking only for a copy of her partner's identity card. Shortly before she died, she told her family to look under her pillow, where they found 50 photocopies - evidence of her self-proclaimed campaign to infect as many men as possible before dying...
...Years later, that disturbing case is having some equally unsettling repercussions in Papua. Dr. John Manangsang, who admits the case was an extreme one, has drafted a new bill that would legalize implanting microchips into HIV-infected people deemed to be purposefully infecting others with the life-threatening virus. "The chip would work similar to the chips they use to track birds and animals considered endangered species," explains the doctor, who also sits in the local parliament and proposed legislation to pass the human microchipping. "I don't expect many would be tagged, but after coming across so many...
...Manansang, who was born in Papua, estimates only one or two percent of 67,200 HIV/AIDS sufferers in Papua would qualify for the microchip. "The chip would send off a signal when infected blood comes into contact with non-infected blood so it would monitor the spread." Some 77% of those infected, according to 2006 government data, are indigenous Papuans, who make up about half of the province's population of 2.8 million people. "I am only trying to prevent the extinction of the Papuan people...
...Papua does have a major problem on its hands: the province's HIV infection rate is 15 times higher than the national average. Not good news in a country with Asia's highest growing HIV-infection rate, but not everyone thinks microchipping is the way to improve the situation. The proposed bill, now with the provincial parliament, has encountered fierce resistance from local health workers, government officials and church leaders, who say the practice would constitute a human rights violation and do little to address Papua's high infection rate. "Two wrongs do not make a right, and the plan...
...species richness is supposedly astronomical,” Tootle said, noting that Papua New Guinea is home to 5 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity despite making up only one half of 1 percent of the planet’s land area...