Guatemala: Rising HIV Cases "A Chronicle of Death Foretold"

According to activists, Guatemalans with HIV/AIDS are deprived of basic rights to work, education, and health. Upon suspicion of HIV, "they are dismissed or demoted, or their contract is not renewed, and their rights to health care and to education for their children are denied," said Cristina Calderún of the Fernando Iturbide Foundation, an AIDS-prevention nongovernmental organization (NGO).

A UN report this year estimated some 61,000 people of Guatemala's 14.7 million had HIV in 2005, 6,000 more than in 2003. The report noted as many as 100,000 could be infected.

While the government said the rise is due to increased HIV screening, activists blame the lack of political will to enforce a law requiring schools to teach HIV/AIDS information from the fifth grade (age 11) on.

A campaign for "More Rights, Less Discrimination," funded by British NGO Plan International, is a three-year program focused on training some 1,000 teachers to raise HIV/AIDS awareness among 32,000 primary school children and 30,000 youths ages 10-18 outside the public school system. But the campaign will only take place in three of Guatemala's 22 provinces.

Antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS patients is free in Guatemala, whether through nonprofits or the Guatemalan Social Security Institute (IGSS) and its affiliates. But IGSS patients often complain about the drugs' availability.

The Health Ministry said 3,699 adults and 620 children are being treated for HIV/AIDS. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which for the past two years has run a program to combat HIV/AIDS in Guatemala, has announced funding to provide comprehensive treatment for 7,525 people by 2009, when the program ends. Claudia Areli Rosales of the NGO Positive People fears the national health system will not be able to absorb all the patients from the program.

Calderún said 8,000 Guatemalans are in urgent need of treatment, and half may die without it. She also criticized the lack of follow-up of patients and the failure to test pregnant women for HIV. Her foundation has brought a suit before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging "discrimination by failure to provide universal AIDS treatment in Guatemala, and the absence of political will on the part of the government." Commission members will arrive in Guatemala to investigate on July 20.

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