People Living with AIDS and HIV Say Discrimination Tops List of Concerns

When Elmar Wishart became seriously ill from HIV complications, he said doctors in the South American country of Guyana refused to treat him. "Facilities there are inhuman," said the 45-year-old Guyana native, who was diagnosed with the virus in 1990. Wishart and others at this week's 10th International Conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS in Trinidad say one of the remaining obstacles in the battle against AIDS is the stigma attached to the disease.

An estimated 2 percent of people in the Caribbean, excluding Cuba, have HIV/AIDS -- the world's highest regional infection rate after sub-Saharan Africa. In Cuba, extensive treatment and prevention have kept infection rates extremely low. But elsewhere in the Caribbean, discrimination has prevented some from getting treatment. In socially conservative Jamaica, for example, 66 percent of AIDS cases are diagnosed just before or after death, according to Jamaica's National HIV/AIDS control program. "People are brought up to think those with HIV are immoral," said Jamaican Dorothy Blake, spokesperson for the Caribbean Regional Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.

Out of 150 HIV-positive Trinidadians attending the conference, none have publicly disclosed their status, said Claudette Francis, coordinator with Community Action Resource, Trinidad's AIDS counseling center. "Stigma is one of the greatest impediments in fighting HIV and AIDS," said Frenk Guni of Zimbabwe, a member of the Global Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS, who has been HIV-positive for 14 years. "When I first came out in the open about my HIV status, my relatives cut relations with me. I was gripped with fear of being abandoned," said Guni. Like Wishart, Guni said many people living with the virus around the world are denied medical treatment. In the Caribbean, about 500,000 people are living with HIV, according to the Caribbean Task Force on HIV/AIDS.

Back to other CDC news for October 31, 2001

Previous Updates