Panafrican News Agency - December 3, 2001
The belated outbreak of the disease enabled Reunion to draw from the experience of continental France, where the epidemic was reported in the early 1980s. Another asset is that Reunion's health system is as developed as that of industrialised countries.
"As was the case in other countries, the initial risk groups were homosexuals and drug addicts, before heterosexuals eventually accounted for the majority of cases", said Dr Catherine Gaud, an AIDS specialist.
Vast AIDS awareness campaigns to promote the use of condoms were launched in Reunion, mainly targeting the youths. The number of HIV cases has now stabilised at 515 out of a population of 750,000.
Free access to triple therapy from 1996, in the same conditions as in continental France, enabled Reunion to cut the AIDS mortality rate by about 85 percent.
However, these positive results could be jeopardised by the banalisation of HIV, the familiarity with awareness campaigns and the widespread belief that, thanks to medical progress, AIDS is no longer a real danger.
A survey carried out in high schools on the island confirmed this trend. While 70 percent of students interviewed said they systematically used condoms three years ago, the percentage has now dropped to 30 percent.
According to Dr Gaud, "a whole generation have grown tired after using condoms for 20 years and now tend to do without them".
This situation is all the more worrying as 10 percent of people contaminated have a drug-resistant type of HIV.
Specialists are fearing a second outbreak of the epidemic and have initiated new awareness campaigns, notably towards heterosexuals, who still strongly believe that AIDS is a disease for homosexuals.
Meanwhile, solidarity measures are also being carried out to provide treatment to AIDS patients in Mauritius and Seychelles.
In fact, while the governments of the two neighbouring islands have committed to providing treatment to their patients, the decision will only come into effect in six months or a year, and some patients in Mauritius and Seychelles cannot afford to wait that long.
That is why specialised organisations in Reunion have launched a fund-raising operation to pay for the treatment of needy patients in the two island nations.
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