Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) states that the Caribbean has the highest incidence rate of reported AIDS cases in the Americas. With between 350,000 and 590,000 Caribbean people living with HIV/AIDS, the region has an adult HIV prevalence rate between 1.9% and 3.1%, second only to Africa (7.5% and 8.5%). Of that number, 83 per cent know their status and 68 per cent of them are on treatment. However, only 57 per cent of people living with HIV are virally suppressed and thus have a reduced risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners. As a region the Caribbean is facing a generalized epidemic. HIV/AIDS is well entrenched here, with a national prevalence of at least 1% in 12 countries, all of them in the Caribbean Basin. The most recent national estimates showed HIV prevalence among pregnant women reaching or exceeding 2% in eight countries: the Bahamas, Belize, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, St. Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Over thirty thousand p...