We join the AIDS fight

THE AIDS pandemic continues to take a dreadful toll in suffering and death across the globe, particularly in developing countries, inspite of the development of antiretroviral drugs and widespread education campaigns. The essential difficulty in dealing with this deadly scourge, of course, is the fact that it is spread through the most primeval, compulsive and visceral urge that propels and procreates members of the animal kingdom, that is the act of sex. AIDS is primarily and essentially a sexually-transmitted disease and its ravages reach alarming proportions among the population of poor countries in which casual sex is a common practice with little or no moral restraint and where mass drug treatment is still too expensive to afford. Trinidad and Tobago may consider itself fortunate in having not only an active National Aids Programme and an up-to-date testing and treatment facility in the Medical Research Foundation, but also a government that recognises the destructiveness of AIDS and the need to provide adequate funding to treat victims and keep the disease at bay. Still, TT and the Caribbean have a high incidence of the disease and the effort to deal with the AIDS threat must be pursued with unrelenting determination and in a comprehensive fashion. Almost 3,000 persons have died from AIDS in TT since 1983 and the cases of the disease are still rising, according to Dr Ian Popplewell, Principal Medical Officer (Epidemiology) Ministry of Health. In the ten years from 1992 to 2002, AIDS cases have risen from 1,156 to 4,711.

Newsday is pleased to play a part in this anti-AIDS effort by distributing free of charge with our paper tomorrow, World AIDS Day, an informative booklet on the disease prepared by the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC)/PAHO/WHO. The 26-page booklet meets the still urgent need for popular education on this life-threatening subject and answers all of the frequently asked questions about HIV and AIDS in a concise and simple manner. The publication places an emphasis on the use of condoms which, if used correctly, it says, “will protect you from contracting AIDS.” The CAREC booklet points out: “A condom is the only barrier that is now available to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, during sexual intercourse.” Apart from explaining the effect of the virus on the body’s immune system, the booklet deals with the questions of transmission, risks of infection, signs and symptoms, testing and viral load and social issues such as the query: “I don’t use a condom with my regular partner but I believe he may be having affairs outside of our relationship what should I do?” This question brings up an issue which, in our view, requires urgent legislative action. It deals with cases in which HIV-positive persons deliberately pass on the virus to their sexual partners without informing these persons about their infection. We agree with Dr Popplewell that AIDS should not be made a notifiable disease, requiring physicians to report every case to the authorities, but we consider it a heinous crime for an infected person to deliberately conceal the fact that he or she is carrying the virus and then pass it on to their sexual partners. In the fight against AIDS, knowledge of the enemy is crucial and we hope that our distribution of the CAREC booklet tomorrow will be an important step in providing that knowledge to the TT population.