Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Friday November 7 12:10 AM EST
Simona de Logu

Of the more than 22.6 million people in the world estimated to be suffering from HIV/AIDS, 1.6 million are from Latin America and the Caribbean region, according to the researchers of the Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic (MAP) network, which was created in 1996 to assess the global trends of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"AIDS could overtake road accidents as the leading cause of death among young people by the year 2000," said Daniel Tarantola of the Harvard School of Public Health and co-chairman of MAP at a press conference in Rio de Janeiro.

He said it was estimated that 72.2 out of every 100,000 people in the region aged 15 to 44 would die of complications from AIDS by 2000 against 45.7 for every 100,000 people in that age group would die in traffic accidents.

However, the MAP researchers also found that AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it was spreading at a lower rate in Latin America and the Caribbean than in other developing countries like India and Southeast Asia, where the situation was far more explosive.

They said the epidemic was spreading most among the poorer sectors of society in Latin America and the Caribbean and largely remained contained in the high risk groups of intravenous drug users and homosexual men.

"The Latin America and Caribbean region is not considered to be one of the hottest. It is in third place after sub-Saharan Africa and Asia," Tarantola said. "But, governments and non-governmental organizations urgently need to reinforce prevention efforts targeted at groups being struck the hardest."

The researchers said it was difficult to say how extensive the heterosexual spread of HIV in the population at large would be in the future because of the lack of data in the region.

However, the increase in the number of women among reported AIDS cases signaled that the heterosexual spread of HIV had risen in the region over the past few years.

In the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, AIDS is already the leading cause of death among women in their reproductive age.

"There is urgent need for better understanding of sexual behaviors in the region," said Peter Lamptey, MAP co-chairman and director of the U.S. AIDS Control and Prevention Project (AIDSCAP).

He said with the right funding and monitoring and prevention programs Latin America and the Caribbean were still in a position to prevent the extensive spread of HIV to the general population which had already occurred in Africa.

Among the 44 countries in the region, Haiti is estimated to have the highest rate of HIV infection, followed by Honduras and Brazil.

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