The western Indonesian province of Papua, the country’s largest, is going to pass a bylaw requiring certain HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with a microchip as a measure to prevent them from infecting others, said a lawmaker on Saturday.

According to the bylaw, which has met with controversy from human rights activists, AIDS patients with “actively sexual behaviour” may be implanted with a microchip that tracks their activity said lawmaker John Manangsang.

"It's a simple technology. A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities," Manangsang said.

Manangsang also said that if such a patient with HIV/AIDS was found to have infected a healthy individual, there would be a penalty. He declined to elaborate.

According to the Jakarta Post newspaper, Constan Karma, the head of Papua’s National AIDS Commission is quoted as calling the plan a violation of human rights.

Indonesia’s parliament was set to introduce the controversial law by the end of this month in Papua, the country’s largest province, set on the eastern edge of Indonesia, and consisting of the western half of New Guinea.

In Papua, the incidence of HIV/AIDS cases per 100,000 people is 20 times as high as the national average for Indonesia, a 2007 government study found.

Health experts say that the disease has been quickly spreading from prostitutes to husbands to housewives in the last few years. Adding to that high promiscuity, the rituals of some Papuan tribes which involve partner swapping, poor AIDS education and the lack of condoms have all added to the spread of the illness in the area.