Published On:Wednesday, October 07, 2009

By ALISON LOWE

Tribune Staff Reporter

alowe@tribunemedia.net

IN AN ironic twist in the fight against HIV/AIDS, success in treating people living with the virus has seen the Bahamas appear to have a higher HIV/AIDS rate than resource-poor countries like Haiti.

According to Perry Gomez, director of the National Aids Programme, the fact that there are now fewer people dying from AIDS in the Bahamas thanks to wider access to medication and awareness has meant there are more people alive to be recorded in the statistics which are shared internationally.

Currently, the Bahamas is documented by the Joint United Nations AIDS Programme (UNAIDS) as having an HIV/AIDS rate among people aged 15 to 49 of three per cent. The same grouping in Haiti has a rate of 2.2 per cent, Cuba, a 0.1 per cent rate, Jamaica, 1.6, Trinidad and Tobago, 1.5, and Barbados, 1.2.

"The fact is we have done such a good job of keeping people alive has added to the figures. The fewer people who die, the more you have with AIDS alive. And so when one looks at country data, and this is important for us. You might wonder why our prevalence remains being reported relatively high, higher than some countries that might surprise you."

Dr Gomez said it is "important to understand the nuances of statistics."

"As someone once said, 'There are lies, damn lies and statistics'," joked the official.

Over the last three years the number of cases where HIV progressed to AIDS has diminished significantly.

By the end of 2008, 185 new cases of AIDS - the final stage of HIV infection, which sees the body's immune system weakened to the point that it has serious difficulty fighting infections - had been recorded in the Bahamas, compared with 221 in 2007 and 329 in 2006.

The highest ever number of cases in one year of HIV progressing to AIDS - a progression which is more rapid if HIV positive individuals do not take anti-retroviral drugs - was 382 in 1997, and the rate has decreased year on year ever since.

Of the 185 AIDS cases in 2008, 65 people died and 120 remained alive at the end of the year.

Dr Gomez noted that this ensured that there were fewer people who died of AIDS last year than who lost their lives as victims of murder.

This success in keeping sufferers alive is in contrast to struggling countries like Haiti, where fewer people who contract the virus seek or receive treatment and therefore often die, removing them from data that is documented by international organisations which monitor the pandemic.

On top of the impact of this success on the rate, Dr Gomez claimed to "totally believe" that international organisations have exaggerated the Bahamas' rate, pegged at around three per cent.

The rate would also be increased by the success of a Know Your Status Campaign which continues to encourage people to get tested for HIV/AIDS.

Mr Gomez revealed that last year the National AIDS programme had been able to get "significant testing done" in the "men who have sex with men" community (MSM) in the Bahamas, a group which is known to be more likely than most not to seek testing or treatment for fear of discrimination.

The introduction of a new "rapid testing" technique, now available at all public clinics in New Providence and about to be launched across Grand Bahama, is expected to make a further impact in this regard, adding to the numbers of people who know their status by making the experience less time consuming.

The testing technique, which is as accurate as traditional methods, enables people to get tested and receive their results in less than half an hour - much quicker than the days in which people would have to wait to get blood test results back from a laboratory.