Geneva, 30 nov (EFE).-unprotected sex between men and the lack of national programmes of prevention and treatment aimed at this group are stoking the AIDS epidemic in Latin America, where there are 1.5 million of those infected with the virus HIV.
They are data and conclusions included in the “report on the response Global to HIV/AIDS”, produced by the World Health Organization (who), UNICEF and UNAIDS, and launched today in Geneva.
Against the global trend that has registered a decline of 15% of persons carriers of HIV in the past five years, in Latin America the total number of people living with the virus has risen from 1.3 million in 2001 to 1.5 million in 2010.
What is a seemingly negative data, it is not at all, that the report attributes this increase to the increase in people receiving antiretroviral therapy, which has made reducing the number of people who die from AIDS causes.
In 2010, the number of deaths in the region was 67,000 from a peak of 83,000 from 2001 to 2003.
In the same period there was a drop in the incidence of HIV among children under 15 years: 47,000 carriers in 2001 has passed to 42,000 in 2010; of new infected 6,300 annually has passed to 3,900, and deaths from AIDS-related causes has gone from 4400 to 2,700 per year between 2001 and 2010.
In this context of positive data, the concern of the United Nations is the spread of the virus by the unprotected sex between men, a group which in the last decade the prevalence of the virus has been 10% in 9 of the 14 countries of the region.
Rates of infection in this group reaches 21% in Bolivia, from 19% in Colombia and Uruguay areas, and 12% on average in the 10 cities of Brazil and the three cities of Honduras where carried out case studies on this topic.
According to the report, men who have sex with other men in Latin America are 33% more chances of contracting HIV than the average male.
In a study that was done in 2010 in two provinces of Nicaragua (Managua and Chinandega) it was found that 3% of men who have sex are carriers of HIV, of which only one-third said using condoms.
In another study of 2009, is recalled in the report, has been identified an incidence of the virus in 3.5% among individuals in this group attending Centre public health in Lima.
And one concrete fact: San Pedro Sula (Honduras), found that 9% of men aged 18-24 who have sex are carriers of the AIDS virus.
The problem of transmission not concerned only this group, as highlighted in the report, since many of these men also have sex with women from way to normal.
The authors of this study by the UN denounced the lack of national programmes that are focused on preventing and treating infection of HIV in this social group, being the only country who spent more than 5% of its total investment to prevention activities to programmes for sex between men Peru.
Peru was also the exception among the Andean, together with Central Americans demonstrated lack of resources to address and combat the problem, as said in press conference Gottfried Hirnschall, responsible for the fight against HIV in the who.
Hirnschall noted that these countries need to rethink their goals, and urged them to overcome the stigma that continues to weigh on homosexual relationships with campaigns against homophobia, which have already yielded positive results in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.
The head of the who said that the stigma lies also with transsexuals, a collective on which there is little information or unreliable information, in the incidence of HIV.
The report cites a study conducted in 13 cities of Argentina, who revealed “alarming” the HIV prevalence rates, and that 34% of transgender prostitutes are carriers of the virus.
