Social and economic impact of AIDS. (Latin America and the Caribbean)

Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin American and Caribbean countries are being rapidly affected by the AIDS epidemic - estimates indicate that between 500,000 and one million persons there are infected with HIV.

Jaime Rivera-Dueno, executive director of the San Juan AIDS Institute, discussed the situation at the VII International Conference on AIDS, Florence, Italy.

According to Rivera-Dueno, limited economic resources combine with cumbersome bureaucratic operational mechanisms in Latin America to make it very difficult for the already overburdened healthcare systems of the region to combat AIDS. The lack of an adequate system of healthcare, …