HIV/AIDS rising in Barbados

PM Owen Arthur
(OAS Photo)

Sunday, October 12, 2003

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: The HIV/AIDS case load in Barbados is estimated to grow by one each day. This was revealed by Prime Minister Owen Arthur during the feature address at the second National Consultation on HIV/AIDS at Sherbourne Conference Centre on Friday, 10th September.

The Barbados Nation quoted Mr. Arthur as urging Barbadians to combat this grave statistic by changing their sexual behaviour practices and focusing on prevention. 

"The millions of dollars that we now devote to care and treatment, especially behind the active anti-retroviral therapy programme, will be of no consequence unless there is a dramatic and drastic change in personal behaviour especially among members of society who are most at risk," said the prime minister. 

He said that though substantial progress had been made towards achieving the stated goal of 50 per cent reduction of HIV/AIDS mortality by 2004, Barbados was far off its second target of achieving a 50 per cent reduction in incidence of HIV/AIDS by 2006. 

"Without reducing the extent and the quality of our national care and treatment programme, it is absolutely crucial that we now place an overwhelming emphasis on the national programme of prevention, concentrating on information, education and communication as our main tools," said Mr. Arthur.

He indicated that over the next two years the focus of the national HIV/AIDS programme would be on behavioural change communication, particularly among the youth, women, sex workers and men who had sex with men. 

And he stated there would be a more emphatic social marketing of condoms to address the problem of inconsistent condom usage. 

The Prime Minister added the government was committed to the free provision of anti-retroviral therapy for all citizens living with HIV/AIDS. 

He pledged his administration's procurement and distribution of these lifesaving drugs even after the World Bank loan now being used to finance the programme is exhausted in 2007. 

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