Cuba winning AIDS fight as homophobia gives way to tolerance
Cuba winning AIDS fight as homophobia gives way to tolerance
Donald Mcneil
May 14, 2012.
HAVANA: Yudelsy Garcia O'Connor, the first baby known to have been born with AIDS in Cuba, is not merely still alive. She is vibrant, funny and, at age 25, recently divorced but hoping to remarry and have children.
Her father died of AIDS when she was 10, her mother when she was 23. She was near death herself in her youth.
''I'm not afraid of death,'' she said. ''I know it could knock on my door. It comes for everyone. But I take my medicine.''
She is alive thanks partly to lucky genes, and partly to the intensity with which Cuba has attacked its AIDS epidemic. Whatever debate may linger about the government's harsh early tactics - until 1993, everyone who tested positive for HIV was forced into quarantine - there is no question that they succeeded.
Cuba now has one of the world's smallest epidemics, a mere 14,038 cases. Its infection rate is 0.1 per cent, on par with Finland, Singapore and Kazakhstan. That is one-sixth the rate of the United States, one-twentieth of nearby Haiti.
More:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/cuba-winning-aids-fight-as-homophobia-gives-way-to-tolerance-20120513-1ykov.html#ixzz1uv9NOgBq
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