Indonesian prison authorities have long known about the rampant drug use and drug-dealing in the countrys jails, but many of them had chosen to play dumb because they themselves had a part in the trade, say activists in Jakarta.

Now that drug abuse is being singled out as one of the major reasons for a rise in the number of HIV/Aids among Indonesian inmates, activists say jail authorities should rouse themselves from their stupor.

Drugs are readily available in the country prisons because of some corrupt authorities, says Aids activist Baby Jim Aditya. And in the countrys prisons, the drug dealers and drug users are together, making it difficult to control the use of illegal drugs.

Indeed, the drug deals in the Cipinang prison in East Jakarta alone was reported to have amounted to at least 20 million rupiah (US$2,100) last year.

According to the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), the use of illegal drugs among inmates is prevalent, making them prone to HIV/Aids.

This is because HIV can spread through the sharing of dirty needles by the injecting drug users and unsafe sex. Experts point out that the latter is more likely to happen if at least one of the partners is under the influence of drugs.

Endang, head of the contagious disease department of the Jakarta Health Agency, confirms that the spread of HIV in prison cells is mainly due to the sharing of syringes among drug users and unsafe sex.

Inmates already have HIV

Recent medical tests conducted by health officials indicate that several inmates in the countrys prisons already have HIV, which causes Aids.

In the Salemba penitentiary in Central Jakarta alone, results of random blood tests conducted from November to December last year showed that at least 22 percent of 200 prisoners who were tested for HIV came up positive.

Random blood testing in the Salemba correctional centre, where all the inmates are male, started in 1997. It had its first cases of HIV in 1998, when at least 19 or 3.8 percent of 509 blood samples tested positive forthe virus. In 2000, about 44 or 17.5 percent of 250 blood samples were detected with HIV.

All correctional and detention centres in Jakarta have cases of HIV/Aids and the virus is spreading very rapidly, says Jakarta Health Agency chief A Chalik Masulili.

He adds, Correctional centres are high risk places for HIV/Aids as many prisoners jailed for drug-related crimes are vulnerable to infection.

For his part, Bambang Kusbanu, chief of the Salemba penitentiary in Central Jakarta, says it is also possible that some inmates had contracted HIV before entering correctional centres. Other authorities also say that tattooing may be another factor contributing to the spread of HIV/Aids in Indonesian prisons.

But Sigit Priohutomo, chief of guidance and evaluation section of Aids and STD Control Programme of the Ministry of Health, notes, The increasing number of HIV/Aids cases in Indonesias prisons is related to the rising number of IDUs (injecting drug users) in the country.

The number of IDUs in the country is increasing very rapidly and the risk to contract HIV/Aids is also increasing very much, he says.

Producer of illegal drugs

Data from the Ministry of Health showed that more than 50 percent of drug users in the country are IDUs. To make matters worse, authorities now say that Indonesia has become a producer of illegal drugs as well.

The health ministry also says that the number of people with HIV in the country reached 1,904 in 2001, up from 1,172 in 2000. The cumulative total of recorded AIDS cases stood at 671 by the end of last year, up from 452 by end-2000.

As in other countries, experts here say the real number of Indonesians with HIV/Aids could be much higher. Health Minister Achmad Sujudi himself says that the actual number of people with HIV could range between 80,000 and 120,000.

For all these, earnest efforts to limit if not stop drug use among prisoners seem to have begun only recently. Some jail personnel have been among the culprits in the spread of the drug habit behind bars.

On March 22, a guard in Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta was caughtred-handed while conducting drug transaction with an inmate in the high-security prison building.

Authorities, however, admit that this was hardly the first case involving prison personnel, since a number of security guards have been caught selling drugs in the penitentiaries over the past years.

Lack of commitment

In the meantime, no one, including non-government organisations (NGOs), has yet begun any anti-HIV programme specifically for the countrys prisons. But some say this is not surprising given the governments lack of commitment to addressing HIV/Aids issues.

Jakarta-based Aids activist Chris Green says part of the reason why NGOs have been slow to come up with anti-HIV/Aids campaigns for the prisons is that like the government, we have limited resources and funding.

Aditya, however, says she plans to conduct informal Aids counselling for inmates starting in Tangerang this week.

Asked why she had not done so earlier, she says, How can we conduct anti-HIV programmes for inmates when prison authorities keep on denying that HIV/Aids is a major problem in the countrys prisons? But now that it has been proven that HIV/Aids exists in the countrys prisons, it is time to act.