‘A Lot to Do, and Little Time’
Haiti Non-African Nation Most Affected by HIV/AIDS
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One year after a massive earthquake ravaged Haiti, the country is in the midst of battling an ongoing outbreak of cholera and struggling with political unrest.
Meanwhile, issues Haiti struggled with before last year’s string of unfortunate events have not disappeared—among which is the number of people in the country living with HIV/AIDS.
“Haiti was the country most affected by AIDS outside of Africa,” said Dr. Jean William Pape to an audience in Concordia’s Hall Building on Thursday night. The lecture was presented by HIV/AIDS Concordia as part of Concordia University’s Community Lecture Series on HIV/AIDs.
Pape is a professor of medicine at Cornell University and executive director and founder of the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, or GHESKIO, a Haiti-based NGO that was the first association worldwide dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDs.
Pape discussed GHESKIO’s response to Haiti’s HIV/AIDS crisis, before and after the earthquake. The organization treats up to 1,200 patients daily.
With the exception of a few brief anecdotes, Pape’s talk didn’t use cutting words or tragic stories to paint a picture of the situation in Haiti. Instead, he presented the audience with the country’s reality in the form of facts and figures ignore spoke very clearly for themselves.
HIV/AIDS is not Haiti’s only pressing health issue, Pape said. He also discussed infantile diarrhea, maternal mortality, cholera, syphilis and tuberculosis.
He noted that last January’s earthquake was responsible for severely damaging three of the nation’s four medical schools.
GHESKIO is currently building a new centre and working on research to determine how the earthquake has affected the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Haiti. All he can say for now is that doesn’t look like things have changed much.
In terms of the bigger picture, all of 2010’s issues are still very much a reality; only five per cent of the rubble has been cleaned and millions are still living in tent cities.
Pape did offer a hint of optimism, saying that Haiti now has a chance to rebuild and decentralize from the “Republic” of Port-au-Prince.
He closed his presentation by dedicating it to all of those dead, wounded or suffering in Haiti, and thanked Quebec and Canada for everything they have done to help.Dr. Alix Adrien, assistant professor at McGill University’s department of epidemiology and biostatics, served as the official respondent to Pape’s speech, opening the floor for questions.
The question period was largely comprised of differently worded versions of a very simple query: “How can I help?”
Pape’s response was gracious, but also stern.
“Don’t be a tourist,” he said. “We have a lot to do, and little time, so you need to find a place to work and stay so you are not adding to the problem.”
He insisted that everyone needed to communicate and work together.
“Right now we are in a situation where nothing is coordinated,” said Pape. “We need to coordinate, and coordinate with stable institutions. We need the help; we are not in competition with one another.”
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 20, published January 25, 2011.
