health

AIDS deaths rise in Colón

Regional health officials reported 67 AIDS deaths and 89 new cases of HIV were diagnosed this year.

Health experts say increased alcohol use during the holidays leads to unsafe sex practices.

la prensa

renewed efforts: Various non-profit organizations will join health authorities next year in stepping up HIV prevention campaigns and outreach programs on the streets of Colón next year.1133564

Fecunda Alabarca had been happily married to her husband, Robert, until five years ago, when he was diagnosed with the HIV virus.

“I felt the world was crashing down on me,” said the 34-year-old mother of a toddler, who discovered in that moment that Robert had been leading a double life.

Since Robert’s death to AIDS a year ago, Alabarca has been receiving treatment offered by the Ministry of Health and hopes to stay healthy so that she can watch her daughter grow up.

Then there is Raúl Hinestroza, 30, who confesses that he finds himself on the streets of Colón every weekend in search of fun. That search usually takes him to a local bar, where he frequently ends up coaxing a woman to come home with him, sometimes with money and other times with wiles.

Hinestroza admits that he doesn’t always use condoms, and says he won’t go to the doctor for fear that he’ll be diagnosed with HIV.

“I must confess that under the influence of alcohol I often do many irresponsible things,” he added.

According to Dr. Marcelino Caballero, regional director for the Ministry of Health in Colón, 89 cases of HIV have been diagnosed so far this year. Of that figure, 67 people have died, 17 more than last year.

As a response to the increase in AIDS-related deaths, health authorities with Social Security and various non-profit organizations, including ProbidSida and Manos Unidas, are planning to renew HIV prevention campaigns and outreach programs on the streets of Colón next year.

Caballero noted that the campaigns will emphasize the importance of practicing responsible sexual behavior, such as condom use, monogamy, abstinence. He added that it’s especially crucial to awaken consciousness in the population during the approaching holiday and Carnival seasons, when people tend to indulge in alcohol and let go of inhibitions.

"Things have gone from bad to worse,” said Sister Martina of the Order of the Small Family of Mary, who helps to run the Mary’s Refuge, a facility dedicated to caring for AIDS patients in Colón.

Martina commented that it is hard for her to admit the fact that the disease on the rise, due largely to those people who continue to ignore the warnings and remain leading promiscuous lifestyles.

“In the end, we must face the consequences of our actions,” she said.

The sister explained that the center specializes in helping patients cope with the disease, and often take in children who have been infected by their mothers or who don’t have a family to care for them.

Mary’s Refuge treats up to 16 or 17 adults in-house each month, and serves another 40 or 50 at their homes. And another 175 children receive treatment financed by the center, she added.