Fight aids with abc combo

To be sure, some doubt has been raised in expert quarters about the validity of figures which show an overall decline in the Caribbean. It is true that a drop by half over three years does seem rather high, and on so important an issue double-checking should certainly be carried out. At the same time, this decline comes after ten years of a public campaign which has made most persons familiar with HIV and its consequences.

Having said that, the Caribbean region and this country still have a long way to go. This is because the gains that have been made are tenuous rather than solid. Even as the Government attempts to warn people about risky sexual behaviour, there are individuals and organisations which continually spread misinformation about AIDS.

Such misinformation ranges from the conspiracy theory that AIDS is a man-made disease engineered specifically to wipeout persons of African descent, to claims of herbal cures for HIV, to the dangerous propaganda that the virus is small enough to pass through the pores of a latex condom. The net effect of this lobby, whatever the motives of its spokespersons, is that people do not seek out, or are not open to, accurate information about HIV prevention.

Such information has not changed since the pandemic started. All those countries which have been able to contain their HIV-infection rates have promoted the ABC strategy — Abstinence, or Being Faithful, or Condom Use. There are no exceptions, although people in some quarters continually cite Uganda as a nation which reduced its HIV-infection rate by promoting an abstinence-only policy. However, a 1999 study by the John Hopkins University — the same organisation which the Health Ministry plans to go into partnership with — found that there was an increase in condom use in Uganda as a result of the government’s campaign. The Ugandan government’s own records show that it always pursued an ABC strategy, and latter-day statements to the contrary have the political motive of accessing US funding.

We emphasise this because, in July, Health Minister John Rahael announced that the ministry would be promoting "abstinence and morals" in the fight against AIDS. This is all well and good, once such a campaign does not shift focus from those measures which have shown concrete results within the past few years. The Health Minister must bear in mind that winning this battle means bringing about a lifestyle change among those individuals most at risk for the disease.

That group, according to the statistics, is made up of 16- to 24-year-old males and females, most of them living along the East-West corridor. Preaching abstinence and morals to these young persons may have some effect, but so will telling them about the efficacy of condoms. One approach must not be eschewed in favour of another, because this is an issue where accurate information and a practical approach are a matter of life and death.