Banjir Ambarita, Jayapura – The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Papua and West Papua has jumped by more than 30 percent to over 17,000 in just four months, an official said on Thursday.

Kostan Karma, head of the Papua AIDS Prevention Commission (KPA), said the spike in infections was very worrying, and blamed it on the prevalence of unprotected sex.

He said the latest data from the provincial health office showed there were 7,098 people with the virus in Papua in December, and 10,000 in West Papua.

"But back in August 2010, there were only 5,000 in Papua and 8,000 in West Papua," he said. "The KPA is trying hard to campaign about HIV/AIDS prevention, but we just can't seem to keep the numbers down."

Kostan said that of the 38 towns and districts in the two provinces, Mimika in Papua, home to the world's biggest copper and gold mine, had shown the highest increase and overall number of infections. However, he did not give any figures.

The KPA also blamed the proliferation of new districts over the past 10 years as a factor for the spread of the virus.

"What's happened is that there's been more money spreading around, which encourages people to break with the traditional way of life and adopt a more modern lifestyle, including sexual promiscuity," Kostan said.

"What we're trying to do is get churches to spread the message to get people to stop having casual sex, or if they must, to at least use a condom."

He said that if the number of people living with the virus rose to 1 percent of the population of both provinces – which the 2010 census put at 2.8 million – the KPA would begin imposing mandatory testing for all new mothers in the region.

He said the measure would at least help identify the number of infected newborns, so they could get early treatment.