JAKARTA, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- The risks of being infected by HIV and Acquired Immune Disease Syndrome (AIDS) to Indonesian housewives have been increasing rapidly in the last few months following the fact that the largest HIV/AIDS transferring agents were men having sexual intercourse with HIV/AIDS-risk women, Indonesian AIDS Mitigation Agency (KPA) Secretary Nafsiah Mboi said here on Monday.

    "The HIV/AIDS infection threat has entered a new phase. It now threatens Indonesian housewives whose husbands committed in extensive drug abuse or having sex with high HIV/AIDS risks without using condoms," Nafsiah told a seminar discussing the essential use of condoms to reduce the HIV/AIDS infections in the country.

    Nafsiah said that number of women AIDS patients in Indonesian has increased rapidly from 2,466 persons in March 2008 to 4,701 in September 2009.

    "That figure was part of total AIDS cases across the country recorded by the Health Ministry that demonstrated significant increase from 11,868 in March 2008 to 18,442 in September 2009," Nafsiah said.

    Despite of the data issued by the Health Ministry, the KPA secretary added that the exact number of AIDS patients in Indonesia is actually hard to be predicted since it has the "iceberg phenomenon", where people can only see the small part of the iceberg with the far larger part is still unseen below the sea surface.

    Explaining such a phenomenon, she said that the unexpected number of AIDS case in the country, according to the data issued by the Public Welfare Ministry, the freshest number of AIDS cases in the country stood at 298,000 people from the more than 230 million of population, Nafsiah said.

    According to Nafsiah hetero sexual contacts responsible to 54 percent of AIDS infections across the country, according to the KPA survey conducted from January to September 2009. That figure significantly increased from 2008 figure that stood at 46.2 percent.

    Due to that, the KPA signed a deal with condom producers operating in the country to socialize the use of condoms among people exposed to the AIDS infection through sexual contacts. The deal commenced the week-long condom use campaign that started from Monday.

    During the campaign period, the condom producers would distribute condoms freely to people in amusement places, brothels and other places if requested by people in the communities, Nafsiah said.