U.S.-Funded AIDS Clinic Opens in Remote Haitian Town

On Tuesday in Jeremie -- a remote town about 100 miles southwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince -- a clinic opened and began supplying free antiretroviral drugs for AIDS patients. The facility is the second to open in Haiti under President George W. Bush's $15 billion international AIDS initiative. The new clinic is funded by the U.S. State Department and run by the local Saint-Antoine Hospital. By March, an additional 12 U.S.-funded clinics are scheduled to open in Haiti.

Randall Tobias, the director of the U.S. international AIDS effort, spoke at the opening of the clinic, which is decorated with quilts made by AIDS patients. "HIV/AIDS no longer has to be a death sentence," he said.

Before the small clinic opened, local HIV patients had to suffer through a 12-hour bus ride to obtain treatment in Port-au-Prince.

Dr. Smith Francois, the clinic's director of internal medicine, said anti-HIV stigma often discourages people from seeking treatment. In addition, many people "who get sick go to a Voodoo priest instead of a doctor." Many AIDS patients in Haiti think the disease is "something supernatural that someone did to them," Francois said.

AIDS kills about 30,000 people a year among Haiti's population of 8 million, according to UNAIDS. Jean-Robert Brutus of the U.S. Agency for International Development said the United States spent about $20 million on AIDS treatment in Haiti over the last year. One-third of the money designated for prevention goes to abstinence-first programs. At present, the money can only buy brand-name drugs, not cheaper generics.

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