Crisis in Haiti worsens despite cheaper drugs.

Byline: Tim Collie

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti _ The world's nations have pledged billions to fight AIDS and the cost of life-prolonging drugs have plummeted, but help still seems far off for this poor nation, where the epidemic first emerged two decades ago.

At the Sisters of Charity clinic, tired, gaunt men propped up by their wives and families arrive each day suffering from tuberculosis, pneumonia and other diseases that ravage their immune systems. Those who can walk are often given medicine and sent on their way. The worst find a place in the beds recently cleared of the dead.

"If there are 10 men who come, seven or eight of them will test positive for the HIV virus," said Brother Thomas Pulickal, the missionary who runs the clinic, which sits on the edge of vast slum called Cite Soleil. "A year ago, it was more like six out of 10. The number of people with the virus is growing, and we're trying to help them, but it's very, very difficult. You give them medicine but many of them don't take it for long, or don't return to get more."

The men who lie on the open-air clinic's 47 cots represent the backbone of the working poor in this country. Many are bus drivers, day laborers and fishermen. Some are ex-soldiers, whose positions of power gave them sexual access to needy women. Most are in their late 20s and 30s, though many look far older.

"I had a wife, but when I became sick and…