Halt our youth

The Editor: On Tuesday November 30, world pharmaceutical giant — Pfizer launched an AIDS treatment initiative called the “Diflucan Partnership Programme” where our Government and NGO’s will receive free medication to help ward off opportunistic infections in AIDS afflicted persons. Some 20 years ago Trinidad and Tobago had an estimated rate of infection of 1 in 10,000 persons. Our current prevalence rate is 3.2 percent of the population. This is equivalent to more than 41,000 persons infected. Compared to 1 in 10,000 persons 20 years ago, we currently have a rate of 320: 10,000. Translated to real life situations, on average out of every 31 people you come across in Trinidad and Tobago, one of them has AIDS. Therefore, imagine you are driving to work on a two-lane highway in bumper to bumper traffic. According to the latest figures, one of the five cars immediately in front of you, behind you or adjacent to you has an AIDS infected person, assuming that a car has on average six persons.

lternatively, imagine that in your neighbourhood, each house has on average six persons, then of the five homes adjacent to you, behind your house or across the road, there is one infected person. Things are actually worse than they seem. The disease is growing (logarithmically!). While it took the past 20 years for the infection rate to increase 320 times, in three to five years the same increase will occur. This translates to approximately one in every ten persons infected in five years. Therefore, in eight to ten years as many as one in every two or three persons could be infected. Wake up Trinidad and Tobago, these are real life statistics and we are following the same pattern that has happened in other parts of the world, so why not here? For example in Botswana and Swaziland, AIDS infects about 40 percent, or almost one out of every two persons. Prevention must be our focus, especially in minority high-risk groups.

Given the current circumstances, one would think that business minds, insurance companies, professionals etc would come rushing to develop ways to increase awareness, abstinence or safe sex practices. Seemingly, the harsh reality is that their main markets are not affected, nor are their main human resource pools. It appears that AIDS is infecting more of those in the lower income bracket than those in the high income brackets, more of the less educated than the well educated. I say it “appears to be”, because I can only comment on what other people such as health workers etc say. One of the problems with fighting AIDS as discussed is that there is insufficient research on the epidemiology and patterns of the disease.  While I assume all people are equally at risk when exposed to the virus, some sectors may be at a lower risk due to curtailed sexual promiscuity, whether it be a result of religious, ethnic, social or other values. Other sectors of society may be at greater risk due to migratory activities of its members, culturally accepted promiscuity, or other types of behaviour.

Thank goodness we accept that women are at greater risk than men as a result of vulnerability during and following menstruation, economic reasons, promiscuity of male partners and increased trauma resulting from normal intercourse when compared to men. What about specific sectors of our society? Is it more common in the East West corridor than elsewhere in Trinidad and Tobago? We know that persons in the 15-25 age bracket have the fastest growing infection rate. Do certain types of music encourage promiscuity? These are merely some of the questions which need to be researched, so that the effectiveness of our Anti- AIDS campaigns can be improved. The fight must not only be generalised; it must also target the more vulnerable sectors in society. To accomplish this not only must we conduct research, but we must also collaborate with other neighbouring countries and exchange information. AIDS testing should become mandatory in the public service, and private sector companies. Private companies should receive incentives for providing benefits to employees for the provision of bi-annual tests.

Urgent action is needed to improve our moral standards such as funding for NGO’s, marriage counsellors, etc. Men and women who maintain monogamous relationships should be applauded and children should be taught to idolise these high values. On the topic of condoms it is disheartening to read that some people make uninformed statements suggesting that condoms are an ineffective barrier to the AIDS virus, while others such as Doctor Bartholomew should be applauded for their visionary stance. I agree that abstinence remains the best weapon against AIDS, but is this practical?  Given today’s decline in moral standards can we expect an 18-year youth not to have intercourse when sex is all they think about for most of the day? We also need to examine promiscuous behaviour at Carnival time.

Should we wait until half of our youths are infected before we enforce censorship on the radio for provocative music? How can anyone defend the liberal status of our society while people gyrate themselves to death? Botswana has now introduced mandatory AIDS testing at Public Heath Institutions. Why did they not do this ten years ago? The epidemic is so out of control that they are focusing all their efforts on the younger generation, because as it stands, the majority of the youth face an early death. As I sit back I wonder why so many of the African States take so long to act when they had all the means at their disposal. Did they not see that one in every two will become infected? Do we not see the same pattern?

STEPHEN ABOUD
Port-of-Spain