Plans to tag HIV patients scrapped

Plans to put microchips under the skin of people with HIV to try to prevent the spread of the virus in Indonesia have been scrapped by a provincial government.

An earlier plan was drafted, tagging victims, by Papua province officials to lower the rate of new infections which is 15 times higher than the national average.

Indonesia already has one of the worst records for HIV transmission in the world, with an average of 290,000 infections out of 235 million people.

Health workers and Aids campaigners branded the plans "abhorrent". They said condom use and education should be used to prevent the spread of HIV among Papua's two million people.

Deputy governor of the province Alex Hasegem said: "It's a violation of human rights."

Other extreme plans for tackling the spread of HIV/Aids were blasted by activists in the Pacific Islands when the Niue government's director of health, Dr Sitaleki Finau, was heard mooting plans to quarantine sufferers.

He later claimed his comments had been misconstrued, but one critic compared his statement to arguing for 'bringing back leper colonies'.

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