CARIBBEAN: Needed: Warning Signs on Bedroom Doors
Rich Winkel
** Topic: IPS: CARIBBEAN-HEALTH: Wanted: 'Bew **
** Written 4:03 PM May 25, 1995 by newsdesk in cdp:reg.carib **
Copyright 1994 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 22-May-95 ***
Title: CARIBBEAN-HEALTH: Wanted: 'Beware of' Signs on the Bedroom Doors
by Carol Martindale and Khadine Weekes
BRIDGETOWN, May 22 (IPS) - John X is the stereotypical Caribbean man.
He is married with three children, has six other sexual partners and
three children outside the marriage.
A blood donor for the last 18 months, John X has just found out
that he carries the HIV virus that causes AIDS. His main problem in
life now is how to 'appear normal' in the bedroom and not give away
his deadly secret.
John X has discarded the option of telling his sexual partners
that he is HIV positive. He says he is too scared to speak to his
wife and using a condom might tip her off to the fact that something
is wrong.
John X's letter when read recently on Barbados' popular radio call-
in programme 'Doctor on Call' sent a ripple of fear through the
country as men and women again contemplated their vulnerability to
the dreaded disease.
Experts here say John X's situation is not unusual. There are many
HIV positive persons around the Caribbean who have not disclosed
their condition to their sexual partners and who have no intention of
doing so. They continue to have unprotected sex exposing their
partners to death.
In Barbados, the anecdotal evidence is chilling. AIDs experts tell
the stories of four teenagers -- aged 14 to 18 -- who have been
infected by one man. Three of the young girls' children also have the
disease.
In another documented case, an HIV positive man has impregnated
three of his sexual partners spreading the disease to the women and
to their offsprings. The man has since died.
Last year in Barbados, population 250,000, 11 children were born
HIV positive.
The worst offenders appear to be men, but, says chairman of the
Child Care Board George Griffith, women too are guilty of withholding
vital health information from their partners.
But even when the information is passed on, it is invariably
ignored or disbelieved, says Lydia Waterman who counsels AIDS victims
in Barbados.
Over in Trinidad and Tobago a Swiss tourist, Simona Fricker, was
deported last week after confessing to having had sexual relations
with at least 15 men in one month. The deportation came on the heels
of public hysteria over the situation.
Over the last five months Fricker, HIV positive since 1993, has
been a frequent visitor to the 300 sq km tourist island of Tobago.
She has told immigration and health officials in the southern
Caribbean twin-island republic that she had informed her partners of
her condition before engaging in intercourse.
She is reported to have asked her partners to use the condom but
that they refused.
Fricker's partners it seemed had fallen victim to an attitude that
AIDS awareness programmes throughout the region have yet to wipe out
although they have given it substantial attention -- namely that it
is impossible to tell, just by looking, that someone is infected with
the AIDS virus.
''Some men still believe if they don't penetrate a woman completely
they cannot be infected, others feel that if a person looks healthy
they could not be infected,'' says Godfrey Sealey, a member of
Community Action Resource (CARe), a support group for HIV victims.
Fricker's partners were all from the large community of beach boys
in Tobago who sell sexual favours for money.
''I have had AIDS patients from Tobago who related their
experiences with white, foreign women taking care of them, taking
them on trips to Europe and buying them homes and boats in exchange
for sex,'' says Dr Edward Addoo, registrar at the San Fernando
General Hospital in south Trinidad.
Many of these women come to the tiny island with referral cards
from friends and with telephone numbers of men who had given these
friends a good time.
The men accommodate the women because invariably there is very
little else to do. Unemployment in the 25 to 44 age group in Trinidad
and Tobago is 25 percent. This is also the age group with the highest
incidence of AIDS in the country. Some 70 percent of the 1,700 known
cases are between ages 15 and 44.
The Fricker scandal is expected to worsen an already bad situation
not only in Trinidad and Tobago, but also around the region.
''At least Simona disclosed her status. There are a growing number
of HIV infected persons who are not disclosing their status
particularly to sex partners. With the country's reaction to Simona's
honesty, I expect there will now be even more secrecy,'' says Addoo.
The secrecy surrounding AIDS has not lessened since the disease
first gained regional attention in the last decade. Caribbean peoples
still remember the disease as primarily a homosexual one and fears
about the method of transmission are still high, despite numerous
state and private sector-funded education programmes.
An AIDS sufferer who goes public with his disease is often
ostracised.
''People are afraid to even tell parents, sisters and brothers and
that is where the difficulty is. People have to hide to survive,''
says Barbados' Griffith.
And health professionals in the region are caught in a bind, they
cannot reveal details given in confidence even to protect the lives
of those unknowingly exposed to the disease.
''All we can do is counsel them (AIDS victims) about whtat they
are doing and ask them to be open and talk to their partners about
their HIV status,'' said Waterman.
Addoo believes the only way to protect the partners of AIDS
victims is through legislation.
Attorney-at-Law Lynette Seebaran-Suite disagrees. Seebaran-Suite
last December presented a report to the 14-member regional
integration movement, the Caribbean Community, on legislative
responses to HIV in the West Indies.
Out of 19 English-speaking Caribbean territories only six had
legislation on AIDS she said. In the Bahamas, Bermuda, Belize, St.
Lucia, Guyana and Grenada the penalty for an AIDS victim having
unprotected sex without revealing his or her condition ranges from
five to 20 years.
Earlier this year a man in Bermuda was sentenced to 14 years in
prison for failing to reveal his condition to his partner.
In the Bahamas, Guyana and St. Lucia, infected persons are
obligated to report their status. In Belize HIV poistive persons are
liable to search and quarantine.
Seebaran Suite says the best way to limit the spread of the
disease is through the development of education policies and the
commitment of resources beyond the provision of information.
(end/ips/hm/cm/dt/da/95)
Origin: Kingston/CARIBBEAN-HEALTH/
----
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