Christina Mabele is a 20-year-old woman from Indonesia. However, she doesn’t look a day over 15 and is obviously sick, especially because of the visible sores that cover her whole body and of the emaciated appearance. The silver lining of her situation is that Christina knows exactly what disease is causing her all these problems. She is currently in a hospice, and she might even get treatment soon. One of her friends, Juliana Halo, was not as lucky – she died yesterday. The region of Papua is very vast, and primarily consists of tropical jungles and peeks. Located on the western part of the New Guinea Island, Papua has one of the poorest populations in Indonesia. Moreover, an explosion of HIV and AIDS cases has occurred in Papua.

Statistics show that the infection rate is of about 2.4 infected people out of 100, which is one of the highest infection rates outside of Africa. All the signs point to a possible rise in HIV and AIDS infection rates. The government AIDS commission stated that HIV and AIDS rates are reasonably low in Indonesia in general, yet the territory of Papua is overrun by a fatal combination of poverty, distance, lack of education and a high occurrence of sexual intercourse.

The Indonesian government has so far rejected the proposition to install microchips in its infected people.The biggest problem these people face is that they are infected and do not know it, much less what exactly they’re infected with. Given the difficulty faced by rescuers when trying to reach the area, a lot of time will pass until the tribes of Papua will learn about HIV and AIDS and receive the vital treatment.