HIV/AIDS in an Already Devastated Haiti

The Sleeping Catastrophe: HIV/AIDS in an Already Devastated Haiti.

Haiti has been a broken country at the best of times. The devastating January 12th earthquake has thrown the drastically poor nation under the world spotlight once again, but for all the wrong reasons. At times, it would seem like the very planet itself was conspiring against this small, humble, Caribbean nation. Even, on its best of days, Haiti is crippled by endemic poverty, which is further compounded by the inexperience as well as the corrupted nature of its government. With an estimated 230,000 casualties, the social and economic consequences of the natural disaster that has just struck will incontrovertibly reverberate throughout Haitian society for generations. Moreover, with the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, now in ruins and the vestiges of health care infrastructure all but destroyed, little care is available to those who need it most, especially those requiring specialized assistance, this includes the 120,000 Haitian people currently living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

The Global Pandemic
Human-Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, was first identified in 1981. Since then, the virus has resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people worldwide, making it the most socio-economically expensive pandemic in human history. As of 2007, according to the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), over 33.5 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS. The virus does not discriminate. In the United States nearly 1.6 million people live with HIV, with as many as 350,000 with no knowledge of their being infected with the virus. In Washington, D.C. alone, nearly 3% of all residents are currently living with, or are affected by HIV. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) to call has called it a “generalized and severe epidemic,” as the rate of infection in the Washington D.C. area is greater than it is in some West African countries. Upon signing the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Act last year, President Barack Obama said; “We often speak about AIDS as if it's going on somewhere else,” clearly, HIV is everyone’s problem.

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This analysis was prepared by Research Associate Matayo Moshi

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