National AIDS Programme Coordinator Mrs Noelene Levons-Clarke has said there have been some four new reported cases of HIV/AIDS so far for the year and that it represents a decline in the statistics compared to previous years. Photo: GIS

Speaking on the television talk show CNB Today, which was broadcast live on Monday October 22, 2012 on CBN Channel 51, Mrs Levons-Clarke said testing is done at the National AIDS programme on a daily basis and that there have been 300 persons tested for the year.

“We have been doing it for the past few years but I am excited about this year in particular because a lot of teenagers have come in to say they want to have an HIV test done but it’s the first time I have seen more men stepping up and saying I need to know where I stand. And a lot of persons are saying I am coming to get tested for the first time,” Mrs Levons-Clarke revealed.

The National AIDS Programme Coordinator also disclosed that there have been some four new reported cases of HIV/AIDS so far for the year and that it represents a decline in the statistics compared to previous years.

She said there were 9 new cases reported in 2008, 9 in 2009, 7 in 2010, 16 in 2011 and now four so far in 2012. This would bring the total cases of HIV/AIDS reported to the Ministry of Health and Social Development to 103 since the first case was reported in the Virgin Islands in June 1985.

“It seems that on the books the numbers are decreasing but as I said we don’t know for sure because in the Virgin Islands, because we are strategically placed, many persons go to the USVI, Puerto Rico or to the US mainland for care and treatment so their statistics may not be on our books but we can only report what is reported to us from the public and private health care sectors.”

Mrs Levons-Clarke also said the reality of HIV/AIDS becoming an epidemic in the Virgin Islands, given that the Caribbean is second in prevalence to Sub-Saharan Africa, is not a reality as yet. I think it is because many of us don’t know anybody living with HIV really.  I mean persons with HIV live among us and they are related to us, they work with us but we still cannot connect the dots.”

HIV/AIDS, Mrs Levons-Clarke added, is considered a sexually transmitted infection mainly because in the Caribbean it is transmitted via sexual intercourse, however, in nearby Puerto Rico, 80 percent of the cases are through injections as a result of drug use, and so in Puerto Rico and Europe it would not be considered an STI.

She said the National AIDS Programme has mainly been teaching abstinence, being faithful to one partner and condom use.

Women encouraged to get condoms specially designed for them

“Female condoms or FC2 I think is one way of empowering women. The amazing thing about the FC2 is that it is made of polyurethane, it is just as effective as latex condoms but it can stay in for eight hours. “So the woman can insert it in the morning or can pick it up at lunch time and she can go to the club with it and be ready for sex anytime.”

Condoms, she said, can be picked up at the National AIDS Programme.

Meanwhile, host of the show Mrs Violet Gaul encouraged women not to be ashamed to go pick up their female condoms at the National Aids Programme office “because you are already naked”.