Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Associated Press (12.15.06) - Monday, December 18, 2006
Tracee Herbaugh
"We ask you not to delay this aid to our countries. because HIV does not allow delays, does not allow budgets. People are suffering, people are dying," said Jose Ernesto Navarro Marin, El Salvador's vice minister of health. Assisting those with HIV in Latin America is "an extremely complex process," he added.
UNAIDS figures show more than half of the region's estimated 1.7 million HIV cases are found in the four largest countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. However, HIV prevalence is highest in smaller Latin American nations, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, and Belize.
According to the UN agency, poverty, migration, lack of prevention education, and "rampant homophobia" are driving the region's epidemic. Recent HIV outbreaks have been in the injecting drug user and male homosexual communities. "Unprotected sex between men remains a significant factor in HIV transmission and accounts for nearly half of the sexually transmitted HIV infections in Brazil," said UNAIDS' 2006 report. "As HIV spreads from the most at-risk populations to other lower-risk populations, women are increasingly being infected."
Health officials cited sex education in schools and universities as contributing to the reduction in new infections in the region. "Years ago it used to be taboo talking about sex education. Now things have changed in the last seven or eight years, young people understand better," said Marin.
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