UN report shows HIV/AIDS incidences still high

Port of Spain (CMC):

A new United Nations report on the HIV/AIDS epidemic is showing that despite some significant gains in the Caribbean, some countries, like The Bahamas, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago continue to have a high incidence of infection among the adult population.

The report released yesterday shows that in the past 10 years, new HIV infections have fallen by 14.3 per cent in the Caribbean but below the 20 per cent global decline.

The data show that the direct impact of antiretroviral treatment has resulted in a 43 per cent decline in AIDS-related deaths well above the 20 per cent global decline in the past 10 years.

The Caribbean HIV epidemic, one of the oldest in the world is beginning to change course because of the declining number of new HIV infections and increasing number of people living with HIV in this region.

In 2009, there were between 230,000 and 290,000 people living with HIV in the Caribbean, an estimated 260,000 in the wider Caribbean including Guyana, Belize and Suriname.

Data show that an estimated 18,000 people became newly infected with HIV in the Caribbean fewer than 21, 000 in 2001.

In 2009, the figures showed that 12,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses and UNAIDS Caribbean officials said this number is closer to half of what it was in 2001 when 21,000 people died.

"These data show that prevention is working and treatment is having a positive impact on the lives of people living with HIV," said Dr. Ernest Massiah, director of the UNAIDS Caribbean Regional Support Team.

But the Caribbean says the challenge, however, is how to accelerate the progress accomplished during these past 10 years.

The 2010 Report contains basic data from 182 countries and included country-by-country scorecards. The report gives new evidence that investments in HIV prevention programming are producing significant results in some Caribbean countries. From 2001 to 2009, the rate of new HIV infections stabilised or decreased in five countries.

According to the report, the decline in new HIV infections is the result of safer sex practices, like in the Dominican Republic where HIV prevalence declined from 0.6 per cent in 2002 to 0.3 per cent in 2007 among young people.