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Haiti Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
In 1987 there were an estimated 1,500 people suffering
from
acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Haiti. Most
of the
cases were reported in Port-au-Prince. The earliest
reported case
of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection was in
1978, and
the earliest case of AIDS-related Karposi's sarcoma was in
1979.
About two of every five AIDS patients in Haiti in 1987
were
women. The exact number of people infected with HIV was
unknown,
but one sample of pregnant women in a poor neighborhood of
the
capital revealed that 8 percent tested positive for the
virus.
Most people infected with HIV appear to have contracted
the virus
through heterosexual intercourse. Transfusions of infected
blood
also were responsible for transmitting the virus to large
numbers
of people, especially women, who routinely received blood
after
childbirth. The Haitian Red Cross did not begin screening
the
blood supply in Port-au-Prince for HIV until 1986. Blood
supplies
outside the capital continued to be unscreened in the late
1980s.
The use of contaminated needles accounted for 5 percent of
the
country's AIDS cases.
Homosexual activity has contributed to the spread of
AIDS in
Haiti. AIDS transmission was also related to female and
male
prostitution. At least 50 percent of the female
prostitutes in
the capital city's main prostitution center were believed
to be
infected with HIV.
Because of the prevalence of AIDS in the Haitian
immigrant
population, the United States Center for Disease Control
classified Haitians as a high-risk group for the disease
in 1982.
It rescinded the classification in 1985, however. Early
studies
suggested that Haiti might have been the origin of the
disease.
By the late 1980s, most AIDS researchers in Haiti claimed
that
male homosexual tourists brought the disease to the
country in
the late 1970s.
Data as of December 1989
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