... Community buy-in needed to fight the disease in Western Ja
published: Sunday | June 11, 2006

Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE PARISH of St. James still has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the island, with adolescents and young female adults being of the greatest concern to health professionals in western Jamaica.

One in 125 persons of a population of 180,000, living in the parish are carrying the epidemic, while several cases remain unreported. According to medical officer of health at the St. James Health Department, Dr. Rao Ponnada, within the last two years there has been an increase in the number of cases, particularly in 2005. This has been creating a lot of pressure on an already strained health system, which is further burdened by staff shortage and lack of resources.

However, as pressured as the system is, Dr. Ponnada says his greatest concern is teenage girls who are forced to have sexual intercourse with male adults because of socio-economic factors. "The incidence among girls aged 10-19 years old is three times higher than boys their same age, and end up getting pregnant and the babies are being exposed to the disease," he lamented.

DISMAL PICTURE OF YOUTH

Dr. Ponnada painted a dismal picture of what is currently happening to the parish's youth. He described it as a vicious cycle, which is about to derail national development. "Their years of productive life is being lost," he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Adding insult to injury most of the infected men don't seek help, the doctor disclosed.

Shedding a slight ray of hope, the doctor said that the compliance rate for persons living with the disease fluctuates between 60-80 per cent. "We also have a good referral system that needs to be strengthened, and I am proud to see we are doing 100 per cent ante-natal clients."

But he notes: "We cannot do anything unless the communities buy into the idea of the use of condoms and mothers revealing their status during pregnancy."

Contracting HIV

You can get HIV in four ways:

Unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected partner (the most common);

Sharing needles or other contaminated injection or skin-piercing equipment;

Blood and blood products through, for example, infected transfusions and organ or tissue transplants;

Transmission from infected mother to child in the womb or at birth and breastfeeding.