The Bahamas is The Only Country in The Region that is Witnessing A Downward Trend in New HIV Cases

Anti-AIDS Education Programme Yields Positive Results Throughout The Bahamas

New HIV Cases Decline 

By Candia Dames

candiadames@hotmail.com

Nassau, The Bahamas

15th November-2004

The number of new HIV cases reported in 2003 declined for the third consecutive year, but health officials say there are still serious concerns regarding the spread of the deadly virus in the country.

Last year, 289 cases were reported.  This compares to 332 in 2002; 385 in 2001 and 404 in 2000, according to newly released numbers from the Infectious Disease Division of the Princess Margaret Hospital and the Department of Public Health.

The most recent figure is also the lowest number of cases reported in a given year since officials reported 710 cases in the period 1986-1988.

Director of the HIV/AIDS centre Nurse Rosa Mae Bain reported that The Bahamas is the only country in the region that is witnessing a downward trend in new HIV cases.

She believes this positive trend has resulted from a consistent anti-AIDS education programme throughout The Bahamas.

“We’re marketing the condom use because it’s crucial that everybody who has sex with somebody knows the status of their partner,” Nurse Bain said.  “If they don’t know, then they need to protect themselves with the condom.”

Her department is also getting set to launch a marketing campaign promoting the use of the female condom.

“They’ve been available for a while, but we’ve not really pushed it,” she said.

Officials of the National AIDS programme have also expanded their outreach in schools, working with grade six students encouraging them to delay the initiation of sexual activity.

“What we are also doing is training them if they are sexually active to protect themselves, that is crucial.  They need to know about the availability of condoms, how to store them; how to use them; how to put them on and how to take them off,” Nurse Bain said.

The new numbers also show that the sexually active age group 15 – 44, continues to be the main group of people infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

AIDS is the leading cause of death in the age group 15 – 29.

The National AIDS programme has monitored the epidemic since 1983.  As of December 31, 2003, there was a cumulative total of 9,725 total HIV infections, 4,758 cases of AIDS and 4,697 persons who are non-AIDS HIV positive.

Of the total 4,758 cases of AIDS, 3,309 have died.  Of the total 9,725 infections, 6,920 occur in young adults between the age group of 15 – 44.  The ratio of males to females infected with HIV is now 1:1.

Nurse Bain said there is still a serious concern as it relates to older men passing the virus on to young girls.

It’s a dilemma authorities continue to tackle.  They say because of the high numbers of single mother homes, many girls are often easily enticed by material possessions and are therefore more inclined to have sex with men who can provide these things.

“We’re very well aware that approximately 70 percent of our babies are born to single parents,” Nurse Bain said.  “Because of that, within the home-setting, there is not the male figure…we want to send a message out there, ‘Older men, please leave our young girls alone.’”

There is another practice of grave concern.

Nurse Bain said there are many girls who are engaged in rectal sex as protection from getting pregnant.  They also see it as a way of having sex and remaining virgins.  But she said there is serious danger in this practice.

“Once the lining of the rectum is torn and somebody has HIV, [men] can pass that on very, very quickly to our young girls,” she said.  “This is a concern for both male and females.  Next to blood transfusion, rectal sex is the easiest way to get HIV infected.”

The first clinical case of AIDS was reported in1983 and confirmed on post mortem in 1985.  The first confirmed case of AIDS was reported in The Bahamas in August 1985 when antibody elisa testing became available, according to the Bahamas National HIV/AIDS Programme.

The Bahamas has the highest annual incidence rate of AIDS in the English speaking Caribbean, and is among the three nations with the highest incidence rates in the world.

Tourism, Sex and HIV/AIDS

Everybody is at risk when they are having unprotected sex

AIDS Linked To Tourism

By Candia Dames

candiadames@hotmail.com

Nassau, The Bahamas

23/06/2004

Forty-four percent of tourists interviewed in a new University of the West Indies study said that sex was important in choosing The Bahamas as a destination.

But the study does not indicate whether those persons actually had sex when they came here, although it said that many teenage males see the islands as the perfect place to find girls with whom to lose their virginity.

The findings have researchers drawing a disturbing link between tourism, sex and HIV/AIDS.

Researchers interviewed 500 tourists in The Bahamas and Jamaica and found that 30 percent used their trip to the Bahamas to find new partners.

The report, commissioned by the University of the West Indies HIV/AIDS Response Programme (UWIHARP), also found that 50 percent of visitors did not feel that they were at risk for contracting HIV.

Research was conducted in Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios and Nassau.

Researchers also carried out 60 in-depth interviews with people with HIV/AIDS, health workers, HIV/AIDS activists, human resource managers and policy makers, including those in The Bahamas.

Bernadette Saunders, Bahamas coordinator of Caribbean HIV/AIDS regional training, said Tuesday the researchers were here last month and are expected to return in the coming weeks to conduct follow-up research.

“If we are looking at preventing and decreasing the rate of HIV, we have to look at the tourism industry because a lot of behaviour as it pertains to sex occurs in the tourism industry,” Mrs. Saunders said.

She added, “A lot of tourists come here as prostitutes.  Bahamians have sex with tourists.  If we can determine where these people go to have sex we can target our prevention methods there.  Persons who work in the tourism industry tend to have knowledge about where tourists or the general public go to have sex with tourists.  Some people actually come to The Bahamas or other places for this type of diversion.”

Mrs. Saunders said some tourists pay taxi cab drivers and straw vendors for information on underground places in The Bahamas where they can go to “get kinky sex and find a prostitute.”

She added that researchers conducted what is known as convenient sampling from the streets.

“In some studies, it’s reliable and this is the kind of study that you need to do this kind of research.  They obtained this information by carrying on a conversation with persons.”

Mrs. Saunders said she found the numbers disturbing.

“People feel like it can’t happen to them,” she said.  “They still feel that only certain persons get HIV - homosexuals, drug addicts and people who run around.  Everybody is at risk when they are having unprotected sex.”

Principal researcher Dr. Ian Boxill was quoted in the Jamaican press as saying, “I cannot definitively say that high numbers of HIV in the tourist areas is linked to sex tourism, but I can say if you look at all the factors, there must be some impact.”

The Jamaican Gleaner also reported that researchers painted a picture of sex tourism, where hotels promoted staff-visitor liaisons, where casual sex occurred among locals and tourists, of sex tourism without safe sex practices and of a regional network where girls and men from The Bahamas, Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti frequently sell sex in each country.

Mrs. Saunders said local officials were awaiting the report and will continue their education programme.

She reported earlier this week that new cases of HIV in the Bahamas have dropped from 362 in 2002 to 275 at the end of 2003.