Inter Press Service - October 20, 2000
Marcela Valente

While the prestigious U.S. journal Science reported Friday success with tests on a medicine that would strengthen the immune system of carriers of the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warned about the gravity of the epidemic in developing regions.

The UNDP announced that one of the four people awarded the "Race Against Poverty" prize -- whose slogan this year is "Breaking the Silence Against HIV/AIDS" -- was Nicaraguan psychologist Rita Arauz, a prominent human rights activist.

In a teleconference in which IPS took part, Arauz said the prize would help draw the international community's attention to a problem that has been silenced by unreliable statistics, and one that is closely linked to poverty by means of a "two-way street."

According to the UNDP, 34.3 million people were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide in late 1999, while an additional 5.4 million people have contracted HIV since then, and 2.8 million have died of AIDS-related causes.

The same report reveals that since the start of the pandemic, more than 18.8 million people have died of AIDS-related causes, including 7.7 million women and 3.8 million children, while 13.2 million children under 15 have been orphaned by the disease.

The countries of sub-Saharan Africa have been hit the hardest, accounting for nearly 70 percent of all cases. However, the international community has failed to turn its full attention to the social and economic woes plaguing that region and other parts of the developing world, the UNDP observes.

For years, the UNDP has been trying to highlight the close link between poverty and HIV/AIDS, which continues to spread alarmingly in poor regions, by contrast to the exciting advances made in drug treatments for people living with HIV, most of which are basically unaffordable for developing countries.

In the study published Friday, researchers at Harvard and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre used monkeys to test a remedy that could help curb the progression of the disease for a person who has already contracted HIV, but which is not a vaccine for immunising uninfected people.

A recent editorial in another scientific journal, The Lancet, warned that there was a risk of a growing gap between Africa, where most of the people living with HIV are concentrated, and the disease continues to spread like wildfire, and countries that have largely controlled the expansion of some forms of HIV that occur in Asia, the Americas and Europe.

Arauz, the founder of the Nicaragua-based non-governmental organisation Nimehuatzin, said the low self-esteem that tends to predominate among the poor renders them more vulnerable to the disease, besides generally low educational levels, which make it more difficult for the poor to be informed.

She also pointed to the relatively widespread practice of exchanging sex for food, clothing or cash in Central America, a high-risk behaviour that mainly affects women and even girls.

Low-income families with an infected member quickly lose their savings and their few belongings, thus feeding the vicious circle of poverty in society and the country as a whole, which is forced to spend more on attending such families.

Elena Martinez, UNDP Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said Arauz has been working since 1987 on AIDS-related issues, trying to bring to light the problems facing her country, one of the poorest in Latin America.

The psychologist founded Nimehuatzin in 1990, and more recently played a key role in securing approval of a law considered the most advanced legislation of its kind in the region.

The law makes the question of AIDS a human rights issue, and poses the need for training communicators who can contribute to vanquishing ignorance-based fears, which often lead to discriminatory conduct.

Martinez described Nicaragua's new law as exemplary in terms of treating the problem in an ethical and humanitarian manner, and in addressing the complex economic and social dimensions of the disease, rather than merely the health-related aspects, which separate the problem from its causes and effects. Arauz stressed the need "to break the silence" surrounding the disease, not only at the individual level but among families, in the workplace and at the government level. "A strong political will is needed at the highest levels to prevent our region from ending up like Africa," she underlined.

She said the prize -- which was also awarded to a woman in Malawi, a Polish priest and a journalist from French Polynesia -- would contribute to drawing attention to the problem, and gave a clear example of just how invisible the issue was in Central America.

Arauz pointed out that Nicaragua's National AIDS Programme has reported a total of 151 AIDS-related deaths, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) believes that for every documented death, 150 go unreported.

The Nicaraguan Health Ministry itself believes the number of deaths are under-reported by at least 60 percent, which would put the real figure of AIDS-related deaths at around 2,000, she added.

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