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Jamaica Moves to Reduce Discrimination Against People With HIV/AIDS

Posted on: Friday, 19 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website

Kingston, Jamaica: The Jamaica government has stepped up its efforts aimed at reducing incidents of discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS.

The Ministry of Health has launched a mass media campaign calling on Jamaicans to be more tolerant of their co-workers with the disease.

The campaign is aimed at getting workers to change the habit of not wanting to work alongside persons with the deadly virus. It is also urging employers to desist from dismissing workers with the disease.

The new initiative is also intended to increase the awareness of the rights of employees to be recruited and to continue working regardless of whether they are thought to have or are in fact living with HIV/AIDS.

Head of the HIV Projects Coordination Unit of the Ministry of Health, Dr Yitades Gabre said the campaign has been made part of the national HIV/AIDS policy because an increasing segment of the country's work force is living with HIV/AIDS.

"Of the 22,000 people living with HIV, one out of four workplaces has a person living with HIV/AIDS, therefore programmes reducing stigma and discrimination are critical," said Dr. Gabre.

The campaign was developed on the basis of the guidelines of the National HIV/AIDS Policy and the Draft National HIV/AIDS workplace policy.

This policy is a framework for protecting the rights of Jamaicans, including those infected and affected, by HIV/AIDS. It embraces guidelines set out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for the treatment of persons with HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

An estimated 22,000 persons live with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica, and the authorities said there were 244 new cases for the first three months of this year.

The number of reported cases showed a 20 per cent decline, compared to the same period last year. However, the reported number of AIDS deaths remains unchanged.

There were 170 AIDS deaths during the first three months of this year as compared to the same period last year, when 109 people died from the disease.

The parishes of St James and Kingston and St Andrew continued to record the highest cases of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.

Source: BBC Monitoring Americas

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