Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Tuesday, 3 December 1996.
Evelyn Leopold
"I am the lady who fights AIDS in Spanish," said Christina Saralegui, whose U.S.-based television show is broadcast to 100 million viewers in 18 countries.
She said countries like Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and even Puerto Rico went into "complete denial" about AIDS, believing "it is simply a lifestyle problem the United States has."
She spoke to a U.N. General Assembly session on AIDS along with Elizabeth Taylor, who urged the United Nations and the United States to lead a worldwide campaign to treat and cure AIDS victims, particularly the poor.
Saralegui said that statistics in Latin America were totally misleading since deaths from AIDS were often disguised as other diseases, like cancer. Yet there was evidence that the epidemic was growing among young women, teenaers and the poor. And 17 percent of those infected in the United States were Hispanic.
The Catholic Church, she said, was an additional impediment, arguing against contraception of all kinds.
"The doctors, the health professionals are not educated about AIDS prevention, about how to take care of people with aids," Saralegui said.
"The health organizations many times are tied to very paternalistic national government structures that do not want to alarm the propulation, to admit the problem."
Girls, she said, were supposed to be virgins when they married while boys are encouraged to be promiscuous and told by their fathers, "the more the merrier." Neither received any proper sexual education in the home or in schools because it would be equated "with permission to have sex."
Saralegui recalled a colleague whose husband died of AIDS and who became infected along with her young daughter. He died before his family told her the cause of death was AIDS.
"The most important thing is to get AIDS out of the closet. Let's get out of denial. It needs first to be faced if it is to be beaten," she said.
Marina Mhathis, president of the Malysian AIDS Council, made a similar point at the session, saying that denial played a large part in recognizing and treating victims in Asia.
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