InterPress News Service (IPS); Tuesday, 29 April 1997.
Gustavo Capdevila

In some cases, as in France, the amount of HIV positive prisoners is up to ten times the level seen in local populations, said Stuart Kingma, the UNAIDS specialist.

In 1994, data collected in the United States showed there had been 5.2 cases of AIDS per 1,000 prisoners, which was almost six times the rate seen amongst the adult population of the nation as a whole.

In 1995, in the Argentine province of Santa Fe, between 11.3 and 14 percent of prisoners had positive HIV test results. The same year, in Italy, 13 percent of the prison population had the virus.

The prisons offer excellent conditions for the spread of AIDS, given the predominant atmosphere of violence and fear, which includes sexual tensions, said Kingma.

In prison life, these tensions are eased by drug consumption and sex. The UN found that no country has yet managed to erradicate drugs from prisons.

Many of these prisoners ended up in prison on drug related charges, and in most countries they find it possible to continue using drugs within the cellblocks.

In most cases, consumption is intravenous. The hypodermic needles are in short supply in the prisons, so the inmates resort to rudimentary replacements like biro refills.

In Thailand, the Asian country with the fastest expansion rate of the epidemic, the first wave of HIV was detected in 1988 amongst intravenous drug users.

At the beginning of this year, the percentage of AIDS sufferers within this group was practically imperceptible. But by September the rate of HIV here had increased by more than 40 percent, mainly fed by freed drug consumers returning to prison.

Kingma told a press conference that UNAIDS supported the distribution of syringes and needles in prisons. It cited the example of Hindelbank women's prison in Switzerland, where a needle supply experiment was tried in 1994.

At the end of a year, the Swiss authorities decided to extend the programme due to the level of success achieved. The health of the prison population had improved greatly, there were no more cases of hepatitis and there was no evidence of increased drug consumption, while the demand for needles actually fell.

Another problem is society's difficulty in accepting that sexual relations are maintained in the prisons, between both male prisoners and inmates and the guards.

Research carried out in Rio de Janeiro in 1993 showed 73 percent of prisoners had had sexual relations with other male inmates.

Studies carried out in Zambia, Australia, Britain and Canada also gave levels varying between six and 12 percent, although UNAIDS said the numbers were really probably higher, as it is a taboo subject.

In many nations of the world sexual relations between men constitute an actively persecuted crime, an element which works against preventing the spread of AIDS, said Kingma.

The countries should look into the possibility of making condoms available to prisoners, but "this is a scandalous question for many people who do not accept this situation," said the UN expert.

Another risk factor for the transmission of HIV is the tattoos prisoners often acquire in prison, carried out with improvised equipment. Then there are the frequent "blood brother" rituals.

But the UN said one of the biggest stumbling blocks to detaining AIDS in the prisons is the health care within these establishments.

For instead of closed health systems within each prison, the UN proposed a structural change with the transferral of health control to the public health authorities outside.

Some countries have already carried out the change, with Norway one of the first. France, which did so in 1994, said the results had been positive. Each French prison also has a formal relation with a local hospital. (END/IPS/tra-so/pc/dg/sm/97)

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