Foreign donors back away from Indonesia AIDS fight

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Foreign donors who have propped up Indonesia's fight against AIDS/HIV are poised to slash their funding programs, partly because they now consider Indonesia a middle-income country, officials said on Wednesday.

Infection rates in Indonesia are increasing rapidly among high-risk population groups, especially drug users and sex workers, and in the easternmost Papua region an AIDS epidemic has spread into the general population.

Foreign assistance makes up 70 percent of funds to fight AIDS in Indonesia, but donors such as the United States, Britain and Australia are expected to "drastically" reduce AIDS-related assistance from this year, Welfare Minister Aburizal Barkie said.

Indonesia needs an additional 1 trillion rupiah ($109.1 million) for this year, Bakrie said.

"Therefore, allocations from regional budgets must be increased, including financial assistance for non-government activities," he told a workshop on AIDS funding.

Nancy Fee, country coordinator for the U.N. AIDS agency, said some countries may reduce aid because Indonesia was now seen as a middle-income country but the amount would still be significant.

"According to our knowledge the international support is continuing at a high level," she told Reuters, adding that $32 million had been earmarked for Indonesia from the Global Fund for HIV for the next two years.

Government programs to stop the spread of AIDS have only reached between 5 and 20 percent of those who are most at risk of HIV infection, the National AIDS Commission said.

"There is a gap between the amount we need and the availability of funds. This situation is expected to continue until 2010," the commission said in a report.