AIDS: Number One Killer Inside Mexico City Prisons

AIDS has become the biggest killer of prison inmates in Mexico City, the Mexican daily paper Milenio reported. Enoe Uranga, president of the city's Human Rights Commission, visited the Santa Martha penitentiary in April and found deplorable medical conditions and inadequate facilities. "There were HIV-positive inmates that had gone without medical treatment for over a month, in addition to unsanitary conditions . . . the HIV victims were in very bad shape," she said.

Last year 20 inmates died of AIDS-related illnesses, superceding the number of deaths due to violence. The number of prisoners infected with the virus is unknown and could very well reach into the hundreds. A prison official estimated the number to be around 440; the overwhelming majority of prisoners with HIV are not registered as HIV-positive with prison medical personnel.

"There is an epidemic of under-registration, which is why the number of known cases does not reflect the actual number of infected. There are many who get sick and are taken to hospitals where they die without ever receiving treatment in the prison clinics," said Herbierto Zaragoza Garcia, coordinator of the HIV/AIDS program in the city's prisons. Official prison statistics show 46 registered cases of HIV/AIDS in the city's prisons; all but four patients are male.

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