Trinidad and Tobago: Living with People Living with HIV/AIDS

Abstract

The tenth International Conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS took place in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in October 2001, sponsored by the worldwide body that attempts to speak in the name of this now 40-million-strong population, the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, or GNP+. Although Caribbean countries together have a high per-capita HIV infection rate, with their tiny populations the entire region has fewer total HIV infections than Uganda. As a result, the Caribbean can slip by unnoticed in the AIDS debate. When the world is divided up into regions, the Caribbean usually is grouped with Latin America due to geographic proximity, but its epidemiological patterns are quite dissimilar from those on the Latin American continent. In addition, the language barrier often makes joint action or alliances impractical.

A world conference for people living with HIV fails to notice those doing so just down the street.