One of the offending posters being taken down on Sunday morning. Photo: Twitter / @puspromkes
As part of a campaign to raise awareness about HIV, the Health Ministry recently started a campaign called “Aku Bangga Aku Tahu” (“I’m Proud I Know”). Part of the campaign involved putting up posters in various commuter line trains explaining all of the ways that an individual could not contract HIV, including from mosquito bites, swimming pools, saliva, sweat and sneezing.
Unfortunately, whoever made the poster forgot to put that crucial “not” in the text, turning them into dangerously misleading spreaders of HIV myths.
The posters were placed in trains last Saturday, but after many people pointed out the error, the posters were then immediately taken down on Sunday morning.
Director General of Disease Control and Environmental Health at the Ministry of Health Dr. HM Subuh said that the mistake was made by the designers of the poster and he apologized for the error.
“So, in fact, the word “not” was not included. The sentence should say, ‘I’m proud I know HIV is not transmitted through a mosquito bite, swimming, eating, sweat and saliva.’ But the word ‘not’ was missing,” he told Detik on Monday.
Dr Subuh also admitted that nobody from the Health Ministry actually checked the poster design before it was put up.
The ministry also apologized through the one of their official Twitter account.
Dr Subuh said that he hoped such errors would never happen again, but he did say it had one silver lining.
“There is a positive side to this incident. People are already well aware of the correct information. If they were not aware, we would never know there was a mistake. Thank God, I hope events like this will never happen again,” he said.
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