Cuba Counters Prostitution With AIDS Programs

Prostitution is illegal in Cuba, but a thriving sex industry exists nonetheless. Although Cuba is a destination for sex tourists, AIDS has yet to become an uncontrollable pandemic there. The government's AIDS program provides public education, free testing and care, and promotes the use of condoms.

Cuba has the lowest HIV infection rate in the Western hemisphere, less than 0.1 percent of the population, according to the World Health Organization. However, HIV is spreading in Cuba. In July 1998, the government said 1,980 Cubans had tested HIV-positive since 1986. Since 1998, 3,879 more cases have been discovered, according to figures released by health officials. In six years, the number of newer cases has nearly doubled.

Although some outside the government blame Cuba's sex industry for the spread of HIV, Dr. Rigoberto Lopez, director of the National Center for the Care of Persons with HIV/AIDS, said "prostitution is not an aggravating problem in the epidemic." He noted that only a few of the 280 patients at Los Cocos, the main sanitarium for AIDS patients in Havana, are former sex workers. Cubans diagnosed with HIV/AIDS must stay from three to six months in one of the country's 13 government AIDS sanitariums, where they receive medicine and counseling. Once discharged, the patients are monitored in their homes by social workers.

UN officials said Cuba has done a better job of keeping the epidemic in check than most countries. "Certainly there has been an increase in AIDS, but it is not big, like you see in the Dominican Republic, or Haiti, or in Puerto Rico," said Paloma Cuchi, who oversees the UN AIDS program in Latin America. "They have a very good medical infrastructure, and people have access to care and prevention."

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