Toronto Conference Extols Cuban HIV/AIDS Prevention Program
The recent Toronto Conference on HIV/AIDS put the stress on prevention and noted that the main bright spot is Cuba, where intensive prevention campaigns and greater gender equality have reined in the prevalence to less than 0.2 percent.

According to UNAIDS, at the end of 2005, an estimated 330,000 people were living with HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean. Some 37,000 people were newly infected during 2005, and there were 27,000 deaths due to AIDS.

AIDS is now the leading cause of death among 15-44 year-olds in the region, said a report from the conference. Which is why, experts say, reaching out to young people through popular media like television is essential to reversing the spread of the disease.

With a one-million-dollar donation announced at the 16th annual International AIDS Conference in Toronto on August 24, the Broadcast Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS will launch radio and television programming to increase awareness, said a report of Interpress Service and reduce homophobia and other stigmas surrounding the disease starting in 2007.

"HIV/AIDS is the biggest health problem in the Caribbean," Allyson Leacock, general manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), told IPS. "The disease has the potential to decimate the economies of our small countries."

Women in the region are increasingly affected, comprising more than half of those living with HIV/AIDS, recent studies have found. In Trinidad and Tobago, for example, HIV infection levels are six times higher among 15- to 19-year-old females than among males of the same age..