Development & Aid, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

CARIBBEAN: Risky Behaviour Must Be Tackled, Says AIDS Researcher

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Dec 1 2003 (IPS) - The main causes for the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are not being addressed in the Caribbean, says a leading researcher.

“No amount of quilts, condoms and commemorative stamps on World AIDS Day are going to stamp out this pandemic unless we address the root causes,” said Courtney Bartholomew, head of the Medical Research Foundation (MRF), in a speech here for World AIDS Day on Monday.

Bartholomew was responsible for detecting the first HIV/AIDS case in the English speaking Caribbean in 1983.

Now involved in level two testing of a vaccine being developed by a French-Canadian concern, he says the virus’s root causes include poverty, permissiveness, promiscuity, prostitution and pornography.

Bartholomew said that during the early days of the AIDS pandemic, people were so “scared that many curbed their promiscuous lifestyles”.

“After a few years and particularly with the advent of antiretroviral drugs, it is business as usual,” he added.

“Sex was devised by the creator to create and propagate life. Today it is being used for the propagation of death,” said the retired professor of medicine, who once worked with noted French scientist Robert Gallos, credited with discovering the HIV virus.

There has been a four-fold increase of AIDS in the Caribbean over the past decade, according to Jones P. Madeira, information officer at the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC).

In 1991, the incidence of AIDS in the Caribbean was estimated at 13.6 per 100,000, but that figure had risen to 52.43 per 100,000 in 2002, said Madeira.

According to the ‘Global Epidemic Update’ published by the United Nations AIDS agency, the Caribbean recorded 45,000-80,000 new HIV cases last year, with 30,000-50,000 persons dying from AIDS.

The figures also show between 350,000-590,000 persons living with HIV/AIDS in the region.

Health activist Deborah Bethel from Dominica said the stigmatisation of gay men has complicated the fight against HIV/AIDS on that island. As a result, many had become bi-sexual in an effort to hide their homosexual activities from the general public.

“I know there are men who turn to bisexuality to avoid the stigma society puts on them for being homosexuals – they stay gay but live with women to show they are OK. That further compounds the situation of HIV/AIDS, as many women get infected in that kind of relationship,” Bethel added.

UNAIDS Global report indicates that HIV/AIDS is well entrenched in the Caribbean and Latin America, with HIV prevalence of at least one per cent in 12 countries.

HIV/AIDS has dominated debate on Barbados in recent weeks, forcing the Owen Arthur administration to deny reports that it was seriously considering legalising homosexuality and prostitution to deal with the disease.

“That has never been the issue either articulated by the government or myself. This issue has not come to me as minister to sign off on it; it has not come to the prime minister as minister with responsibility for HIV/AIDS,” said Attorney General Mia Mottley.

The St. Lucia National Youth Council has proposed a 10-step strategy for controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including ending the “silence, stigma and shame” of patients, and promoting voluntary and confidential HIV counselling and testing among young people.

“HIV prevention efforts must also recognise young people’s immediate needs for shelter and food, as well as their need to earn an income in safe and non-exploitative ways,” the NYC said.

At a meeting of the Pan-Caribbean Partnership on HIV/AIDS in Guyana last month, Renee West Mendoza, chief operations officer of the Caribbean Coalition of National Aids Programme Co-ordinators (CCNAPC) said the region should set the ambitious goal of providing 100,000 Persons Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) with access to anti-retroviral drugs by the end of 2005.

But relying on drugs might be a mistake, according to Bartholomew.

“Whereas these drugs are prolonging the lives of many – albeit not all – we do not know for how many years one can continue taking them without eventual long term and serious toxic effects.”

“Moreover, it is not commonly known that in the best centres of HIV/AIDS treatment and care in the United States, the stage has now been reached where between 35 and 65 per cent of HIV-infected patients have developed resistance to all the antiretroviral drugs available to date,” he added.

Mendoza warned that the Caribbean should not become complacent because the HIV/AIDS problem is not as grave as in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean has had, and will have crippling and devastating effects on us all. It is one of the most formidable and daunting challenges to the socio-economic development of the region, and of course, the entire world,” she added.