Council chief urges Fiji to address AIDS threat

It is vital that Fiji begins to address AIDS, which threatens to wipe out the nation’s indigenous people, a top traditional leader said ahead of a meeting of 16 Pacific nations on the disease.

It is vital that Fiji begins to address AIDS, which threatens to wipe out the nation’s indigenous people, a top traditional leader said ahead of a meeting of 16 Pacific nations on the disease. “With our small population base, we are at a very real risk of being wiped out as peoples…,” Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) chairman Epeli Ganilau said.Fiji, with a population of 845,000 people, officially has 142 AIDS patients, 117 of them ethnic Fijians. Indigenous Melanesian or Polynesians make up some 51 per cent of the nation’s population, with 42 per cent ethnic Indians. “We need to talk about it and traditional taboos in discussing such issues cannot be used as an excuse anymore,” Mr Ganilau said. “If the youth is our future and they are sick, then we have no future. “AIDS is very real and we need a collective effort to ensure we survive as a people.” He said that by participating in the AIDS meeting, which starts on March 22, “the council emphasises the need to confront the issue”. President Josefa Iloilo will host the conference at his village, Viseisei, in the west of Fiji. (Source: AFP, ABC Health News, March 2004)