Peru: Testing, Testing

Abstract

“Hand in Hand with Our Doctors: First Steps Toward Living Well with HIV” read the announcement tacked on the bulletin boards both of Lima’s AIDS prevention organizations and the many mutual support groups for people with HIV and AIDS that have mushroomed in tandem with the steady climb in HIV infections in the country, now estimated at over 80,000. The invitation called for HIV-positive limeños to gather on a June Sunday during the city’s perpetually overcast but mild winter. The all-day meeting was to be held at the imposing Química Suiza (Swiss Pharmaceuticals, although the company has no connection to Switzerland) corporate headquarters just off the freeway, a well-known landmark in the La Victoria section of the city. A casual observer might surmise from the promotional flyers that people with HIV would come away from the miniseminar with useful information about how to pursue their desperate search for antiretroviral drugs—available in the rich countries or to those locals wealthy or connected enough to get them on their own, but light-years away from the capacity of the average Peruvian pocketbook.

The sophisticated use of peer educators to bring the AIDS prevention message to “hard-to-reach” groups dovetailed seamlessly into the construction of research cohorts to track the progress of the disease—but not to treat it.

June 24, 2001, 10:00 A.M., Swiss Pharmaceutical Building, Lima