Rod McGuirk, Darwin – The HIV virus had taken hold in East Timor and spread into Australia, a Dili-based doctor said today. As many as 15 foreign workers, mostly Africans, evacuated from East Timor for treatment at the Royal Darwin Hospital, have tested positive to HIV, Dr Dan Murphy said.

A Darwin woman contracted the virus that leads to AIDS from having sex with an East Timor -based expatriate. "There was a case of transmission from an expatriate in East Timor to a woman in Darwin," the American volunteer general practitioner said.

Territory Health Service confirmed one of the five cases of HIV reported among Darwin residents since the United Nations moved into East Timor in 1999 was contracted through heterosexual contract with a foreigner based there. That woman then infected another local.

Darwin has become a popular recreation destination for East Timor workers. Darwin sex workers report African clients refusing to use condoms.

Dr Murphy said the HIV-positive expatriates detected in Darwin had probably been infected before they reached East Timor. But these same UN and non-government organisation workers were also patronising a clandestine sex industry flourishing in East Timor.

"It's [HIV] a problem but no-one knows how extensive because we don't do testing," Dr Murphy said. While the extent of HIV remained invisible, Dr Murphy said his Bairo Pite Clinic frequently treated men suffering the more obvious sexually transmitted diseases from prostitution such as gonorrhoea.

Unchecked, Dr Murphy feared a major blow out in HIV among the conservative Catholic population resistant to condom use and sexual discussion. AIDS would prove devastating with the high rate of tuberculosis among the East Timorese, he said. "TB will become more active and it'll attack more strongly because with AIDS, you don't have any resistance," Dr Murphy said.