Caribbean: HIV and AIDS statistics and features, end of 2002 and 2004

ABSTRACT

More than 440 000 [270 000-78 000] people are living with HIV in the Caribbean, including the 53 000 [27 000-140 000] people who acquired the virus in 2004. An estimated 36 000 [24 000-61 000] people died of AIDS in the same year. With average adult HIV prevalence of 2.3 percent, the Caribbean is the second-most affected region in the world. In five countries (the Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago), national prevalence exceeds 2 percent. Overall, the highest HIV-infection levels among women in the Americas are in the Caribbean countries and AIDS has become the leading cause of death in the Caribbean among adults aged 15-44 years (Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, PAHO, WHO, 2004). Life expectancy at birth in 2010 is projected to be 10 years less in Haiti and in Trinidad and Tobago nine years less than it would have been without AIDS. Several countries and territories with economies that are most heavily affected by the epidemic in this region, including the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Yet most countries in this region have limited capacity to track the evolution of their epidemics, and are relying on data and systems that do not necessarily match the realities they are facing