HIV/AIDS Highlights Gender Inequalities in Cuba

Pamphlets and condoms handed out by Cuba’s National Centre for Sex Education as part of its awareness-raising efforts. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS By Ivet GonzálezHAVANA, May 7 2014 (IPS) All illusions of love, trust and dedication to a relationship flew out the window for Mayda Torres in 1992, when she found out she was HIV-positive while undergoing routine exams to start a new job. “I had a stable relationship. I wasn’t unfaithful. And I hadn’t ever had a sexually transmitted infection [STI],” the 49-year-old resident of the Cuban capital told IPS. “When I got to the hospital [of Santiago de las Vegas, in Havana], I was shocked to see my husband there. He was HIV-positive and he never told me,” said Torres, who is now a sexual health outreach worker. “Women must be told about condoms and STIs, but also about how to set romanticism aside and put the cards on the table with their partners,” she said. “Today no one can be sure about anything,” lamented Torres, a survivor of a time when treatment against HIV was not available in Cuba. Although the number of Cubans living with HIV has grown in recent years, this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million people has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in the world – just 0.1 cases per 100 adults in 2005, according to UNAIDS. Broken down by gender, there were 2,787 women over the age of 15 living with HIV in 2010 and 3,013 in 2011, according to the Ministry of Public Health. And in late 2012, when th...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Active Citizens Civil Society Development & Aid Editors' Choice Gender Headlines Health Human Rights Latin America & the Caribbean Population Poverty & MDGs Regional Categories TerraViva Europe TerraViva United Nations Women's Source Type: news