National Caribbean-American Health/AIDS Awareness Day 2011 will be held on Wednesday, 8 June.
The first case of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, was reported in the Cayman Islands 26 years ago. Since then, 98 people have contracted the virus, and 35 have died from AIDS locally.
According to Cayman’s Public Health Department, there are 53 people living with AIDS or HIV in the Cayman Islands. Ten others have left Cayman, temporarily or permanently.
It’s been 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were reported in the Caribbean – in Haiti. Retrospective analysis of cases, however, showed that patients had already been hospitalised in Haiti with the disease in 1979.
By 1982, cases were reported in Jamaica and Bermuda and, by 1987, all Caribbean countries had reported at least one case.
In Cayman, several organisations have been working to spread the message of safe sex and HIV/AIDS awareness, including the Red Cross, the AIDS Foundation and the Health Services Authority.
Carolina Ferreira, HIV/AIDS Coordinator of the Red Cross, said there remains a lack of awareness of the importance of HIV testing in Cayman and there was a misconception that because expatriates are required to undergo HIV testing as part of their work permit applications that there is a “bubble of protection” around the Island.
However, with thousands of tourists visiting the islands daily and a local population that travels to the other Caribbean islands, to the US and to other destinations regularly, that is a dangerous misconception, Ferreira said.
“Testing for permit holders creates a false sense of security within our community. It creates an impression that HIV is something from abroad, but it’s something that is here. We as a people travel and HIV is in every country, that’s why it’s called a pandemic,” she said.
The Public Health Department offers free HIV testing to all residents twice a year in Cayman. A free week of testing begins on Monday, 27 June at district health centres and at the Cayman Islands Hospital.
The Red Cross is running an ongoing campaign of peer education, which informs young people about the dangers of unsafe sex, the importance of wearing condoms if they do have sex and about why regular HIV tests are needed.
The hope is that these young people, through conversations with their friends and through example, can spread the message of how to keep oneself safe throughout the youth of Cayman.
There is a push to ensure that age-appropriate messages on sexual behaviour is available in schools.
Pauline Ffrench, the Health Services Authority’s AIDS coordinator for the Cayman Islands, said life skills and sexual education classes are carried out in local secondary schools.
“Education and awareness programmes are available and are conducted by trained personnel as needed and upon request,” she said.
She said that these sex education classes emphasise abstinence from sex, but inevitably students ask the school nurses or Public Health staff who hold the classes about condoms. “If they ask about condoms, we give them information about them,” she said.
For those who have contracted HIV or developed AIDS, there is a treatment and care programme available at the hospital that is available to patients/clients on a daily/weekly basis and pre- and post-HIV test counselling is offered to people to undergo the testing.
Ffrench said since Public Health has started offering the free testing, more and more people are availing of it.
She said that HIV tests are also more commonplace now because they are required by insurance companies before they will offer coverage.
Cayman AIDS Foundation also offers free testing and plan to make testing available at Cost-U-Less to the public on Saturday, 2 July.
The Foundation has had several initiatives throughout the year, including distributing free female condoms at pharmacies in Cayman and making bookmarks with messages that target the “party scene” along West Bay Road, that promote acceptance of people with the disease and one aimed at the local community that points out when it comes to fighting AIDS “We are all locals”.
The Cayman AIDS Foundation is also in the process of setting up a “learning library” at its office in Caymanian Village where groups can learn more about HIV and AIDS. “We’re going to do group learning. It’s open to the whole community,” said Margaret Michaud of the Foundation.
The Caribbean has the second highest rate of HIV prevalence in the world, after sub-Saharan Africa.
However, AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was. Increased access to antiretroviral treatments has led to a decrease in the mortality associated with the disease.
Since 2001, there has been a 40 per cent decline in AIDS-related deaths in the Caribbean, as access to treatments has meant that people are living longer and healthier lives. Despite this, HIV/AIDS remains the leading cause of death in the Caribbean among men and women aged 20-59, at 15.7 per cent and 14.5 cent of deaths respectively, according to statistics released last year.
In Cayman, data shows that 23.5 per cent of HIV patients were aged between 25 and 29 when they were first diagnosed, while 16.3 per cent were aged 30-34 and another 16.3 per cent were aged 35-34 when they first tested positive. Just over 5 per cent were aged 19 and younger when they were first diagnosed, and one per cent were older than 60.
Related Videos
