Fighting AIDS in Haiti means confronting beliefs in magic

Thursday, November 20, 2003

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: One in 20 Haitians has AIDS, and it is the main cause of death among women of reproductive age. 

However, according to a recent BBC report, many Haitians, especially the five million who live in the countryside, believe that magic rather than microbes causes many illnesses, including AIDS. 

"Haitians never believe that the reason for an illness is simple," Jan Hoet, a Belgian missionary who has worked in a remote rural area of Haiti for more than 30 years.

"For them it's not due to a virus or their behaviour, but it's done by somebody else, and enemy who is trying to do them evil." 

Because of this magical view of life and sickness, Haitian peasants suffering from HIV or Aids are more likely to go and seek help from their local voodoo priest than from a government clinic. 

"Why should they spend money they don't have on a treatment that is probably not effective anyway?," says Max Beauvoir, one of Haiti's most prominent voodoo priests or houngans.

We have leaves and other plants with many medicinal properties, and some patients who have come to see me are fine after 20 years," 

While not claiming to have a cure for Aids, Mr Beauvoir and many other houngans argue that their approach is more in touch with the Haitians' worldview than the remedies offered by "Western" science. 

Perhaps even more of a challenge for the authorities is the predominance of sexual activity at an early age in Haiti. 

The average age for young people to begin sexual relations is 12, with many young boys and girls starting to have sex as early as eight years old, according to Dr Marie Deschamps, co-director of the Gheskio infectious diseases clinic in Port-au-Prince. 

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