Nurseweek/Healthweek | Cuban government allows group to being AIDS program

Cuba allows group to launch comprehensive AIDS program

posted 8-9-97

Cuba, which until 1994 quarantined all HIV-positive patients until they died, is now allowing the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders to design and implement a public health campaign to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Cuba has the lowest HIV prevalence in the Caribbean, according to the World Health Organization, with 1,655 known HIV-positive individuals among 11 million residents. However, infection rates are on the rise. In the first six months of 1997, 100 new HIV cases were reported, the same number as was reported in all of 1996.

Vera Bensmann, MD, head of the Doctors Without Borders Cuba mission, said that HIV in Cuba is transmitted almost exclusively through sexual activity. Because there has never before been a large-scale AIDS education campaign in Cuba, much of the population remains unaware of the routes of HIV transmission and the need for condoms, Bensmann said.

When Doctors Without Borders arrived in Cuba in 1996, the first priority was to import 6 million condoms. "Small awareness programs about the need for condoms were in place, but no condoms were available," Bensmann said. "We provided all the pharmacies in Havana with an unlimited supply, as well as supplying bars and hotels."

The Doctors Without Borders campaign is also working with the Cuban Ministry for Health to develop an AIDS information and coordination center to provide services including counseling, an information hot line, and a resource center, Bensmann said.