Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterHis eyes were glued to tips of her chocolate-coloured breasts, visible in the deep vee of the low cut blouse she was wearing. She didn't seem to mind, in fact barely noticed as inch by inch she began lifting the tee-shirt, which clung to the well shaped contours of his chest.
They were both about to get lucky especially as they had included a special ingredient a sealed package containing a condom, included on the poster being described to remind Jamaicans that whether they are involved in "A one time fling or a Long term thing...Nuh tek no chance use a condom everytime."
About 3,377 men and 2,168 women have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS between 1982 and June 2001 and now at the start of World AIDS Week, health officials state that the numbers have grown by a minuscule figure between the first six months of last year and this year.
Complacent
Still, Althea Bailey from the Ministry of Health's South East regional health promotion said yesterday that the country could not become complacent because while the rate of infection was not rising as sharply as it used to, the rates were growing steadily in more women than men, especially in the child bearing and productive ages of 15-44.
Ministry data showed that in St. James and St. Ann, tourist parishes, one in 50 pregnant women are infected with HIV.
Attention
There were 900 pregnant women in 2000, she said, quoting from the 2001 Jamaica Aids Report at a workshop held to sensitise journalists to the need for special attention to be paid to the fight against HIV/AIDS and what can be done by media, the Ministry and the public to clear up myths, reinforce prevention and behavioural change and improve the way in which persons living with and affected by HIV/AIDS are viewed and treated.
Persons, she said, were still not properly assessing what constituted risky behaviour and were still going without condoms with a non-regular partner. However, basic awareness of HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it was up, so too was condom usage.
Regarding prevention hurdles, Ms. Bailey said that about 24 per cent of men and 34 per cent of women do not use condom with a non-regular partner, described as a partner with whom they have been involved for less than one year. Among them could be older men who finance young women in exchange for sex. The "Sugar Daddy" syndrome is not only having an impact on young women and school girls putting them at two to three times higher risk for contracting HIV but also the men who have sex with them.
Figures show that men over the age of 50 were at 2.5 higher risk of infection than women their age.
Ms. Bailey stressed that it was time to get away from describing HIV/AIDS, a pandemic which has affected 36 million people, as strictly a medical problem as there were socio-economic factors fuelling the increase such as poverty and ignorance, discrimination, stigma and marginalisation of certain groups such as homosexuals, prisoners and commercial sex workers.
Additional factors include cultural and sexual practices where men and women have multiple partners, hide their sexual orientation, were uncomfortable discussing sex, did not treat sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs) and were involved in prostitution. Nearly 36 per cent of total reported cases had a history of STIs, 42 per cent had multiple partners and 21 per cent had had sex with prostitutes.
Also cited were gender imbalances where some women cannot insist that men wear condoms because they are afraid of being abused or losing the money men provide and where men liked "bareback ride." But the Ministry hopes to change this with this year's campaign for World AIDS Day on December 1. The theme will be "Men and AIDS: I Care, Do You?" and is backed by sexy Latin singers like Ricky Martin.
Kingston and St. Andrew recorded the highest cases of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica although St. Catherine, Manchester, Trelawny and St. Elizabeth showed an increase.
