About 26,000 Chileans Have
AIDS and Don't Know It
SANTIAGO DE CHILE - About 26,000
Chileans have the Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) and are unaware that they
are living with the disease, estimated a
well known infectologist, Carlos Beltrán.
Beltrán, head of the AIDS program in the
capital Hospital Barros Luco Trudeau, called
on all people to be checked for presence of
the virus and develop a new national
campaign of prevention to submit to the
Elisa Test.
The specialist of Santiago de Chile
University (UASCH) also pointed out that
about 18,000 have been diagnosed with AIDS,
five thousand have died, he said, and there
are about 13,000 persons diagnosed with the
virus.
He added that conservative estimates of the
UN-Aids Spectrum Program set prevalence of
HIV in Chile between 0.2 and 0.3 percent of
the general population (between 30,000 and
40,000 infected persons).
Consequently, Beltrán said, there "are
25,000 persons with HIV that donâ�Öt know
it."
He maintained that, in spite of several
kinds of campaigns in the country, the
number of new cases with HIV has been stable
in time and the curve of the epidemic has
not taken a down turn.
Later he informed that some countries such
as Canada have begun a plan of widespread
offer of the Elisa Test and treatment for
persons who need it and results have been
promising to the point that their epidemic
is declining."
On the contrary, he added, not having rapid
access to a diagnosis is a larger problem of
public health because late treatment of HIV
infected patients who already develop the
disease, the chances of survival decreases.
In Chile most people donâ�Öt submit to the
test for HIV/AIDS because they donâ�Öt
consider that they are a risk population
that Beltran questions.
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