Haitians with HIV challenge stigma as they publicly denounce USAID cuts and the decrease in drugs
Port-au-Prince, Haiti- A video showing dozens of people walking towards the office of the Prime Minister of Haiti caused the dressing of certain viewers when he was recently traveling on social networks. The demonstrators, who were HIV positivedid not hide their faces – a rare occurrence in a country where the virus is still strongly stigmatized.
“Call the Minister of Health!” We die! ” The group sang.
The demonstrators risked being avoided by the company to warn that Haiti lacks HIV medication Only a few months after the administration of American president Donald Trump has reduced more than 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts And $ 60 billion in global aid around the world.
In a hospital near the city in the north of CapDr. Eugene Maklin said he had trouble sharing this reality with his more than 550 HIV patients.
“It is difficult to explain to them, to tell them that they will not find medication,” he said. “It's like suicide.”
According to official estimates, more than 150,000 people in Haiti have HIV or AIDS, although non -profit organizations think that the number is much higher.
David Jeune, a 46 -year -old hospital community, is one of them. He became infected 19 years ago after having unprotected sex. “I was afraid of letting people know because they would point your finger, saying that you infect others by AIDS,” he said.
His fear was so tall that he didn't tell anyone, not even his mother. But this fear has dissipated with the support that young people said they had received non -profit organizations. His confidence grew up to the point where he participated in the demonstration on Monday.
“I hope Trump will change his mind,” he said, noting that his drugs will run out in November. “Let the poor get the drugs they need.”
Patrick Jean Noël, representative of the Federation of HIV Associations in Haiti, said that at least five clinics, including one which served 2,500 patients, were forced to close after the financing reductions in the USAID.
“We cannot remain silent,” he said. “More people have to go out.”
But most people with HIV in Haiti are reluctant to do so, said Dr. Sabine Lustin, executive director of non -profit promoters based in Haiti to the objective of AIDS Zero.
Stigmatization is so strong that many patients hesitate to recover their drugs in person. Instead, he is sent via packages wrapped in gifts so as not to arouse suspicion, said Lustin.
The organization of lustin, which helps some 2,000 people in Haiti, receives funding from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although their funding has not been reduced, she said little justice to Trump, the agency prohibited prevention activities because they were targeting a group that is not a priority. By that, Lustin said that she understood that they were referring to homosexuals.
This means that the organization can no longer distribute up to 200,000 free condoms per year or educate people on the disease.
“You risk an increase in infections,” she said. “You have a young sexually active population who cannot receive the prevention message and does not have access to condoms.”
During a recent sunny morning, a voice choir drowned the traffic din in the capital of Haiti, more and more strong as demonstrators with HIV were heading with the office of the Prime Minister of Haiti.
“We are here to tell the government that we exist, and we are people like any other person,” a woman told journalists a woman.
Another walk next to her said: “Without medication, we die. It must change.”
Three days after the demonstration on Monday, the head of the presidential transitional council of Haiti, Louis Gérald Gilles, announced that he had met activists and would try to obtain funding.
Meanwhile, non -profit organizations through Haiti are worried.
“I do not know what we are going to do,” said Marie Denis-Luque, founder and executive director of Choaids, a non-profit organization that takes care of Haitian orphans with HIV / AIDS. “We only have drugs until July.”
Her voice broke as she described her frantic research of donations for orphans, who are taken care of by HIV-positive women in Cap-Haitien after gang violence Forced them to leave Port-au-Prince.
Denis-Luque said that she had long pleaded for the visibility of orphans.
“We cannot continue to hide these children. They are part of society,” she said, adding that she was smiling when she saw the video of the demonstration on Monday. “I was like, whoa, things changed a lot. The stigma is real, but I think what I saw … was very encouraging for me. They cannot be silenced. ”
Experts say that Haiti could see an increase in HIV infections because drugs decrease at a time when gang violence and poverty are booming.
Dr. Alain Casseus, Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases in Zamni Lasting, the largest non -governmental health care provider in Haiti, said that they expect to see an increase in patients count Violent gangs control the main roads And open the fire at random on vehicles.
He warned that the suddenly stopping medication is dangerous, especially because many Haitians do not have access or cannot afford nutritious foods to strengthen their immune system.
“It would not take long, especially given the situation in Haiti, to enter a very bad phase,” he said about HIV infections. And even if funding becomes available, a medication period could resist him, he said.
Casseus said gang violence could also speed up infection rates via rape or physical violence as drugs are exhausted.
At the New Hope hospital led by Maklin in the northern region of Haiti, the shelves are empty. He received more than $ 165,000 per year to help patients with HIV / AIDS. But this funding was dried up.
“These people will die,” he said. “We do not know how or where we are going to get more medicines.”
The drug controls the infection and allows a lot to have an average life expectancy. Without this, the virus attacks a person's immune system, and they develop AIDS, the late stage of HIV infection.
The reaction is fast when Dr. Maklin tells his patients that in two months, the hospital has only HIV medication.
“They say:” No, no, no, no! “” He said. “They want to continue living.”
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Coto reported in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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