28.1% of infected with AIDS in Guatemala is indigenous
28.1 percent of the 16,895 Guatemalans infected with AIDS is part of the Maya, Garifuna and Xinca, an official said.
The coordinator of the National AIDS Programme, Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, Mariel Castro, said in a meeting with reporters organized by indigenous organizations, that 27 percent of all patients with the deadly disease belongs to the Mayan people.
While 0.8 percent belongs to the Garifuna people settled in the Caribbean Guatemala and 0.3 percent Xinca in the east, said the official.
According to the source, about 58,000 people in Guatemala are infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), of which 16 895 have developed AIDS.
A total of 10 731 patients were men and 6164 women, but only 8560 receive antiretroviral treatment.
The official complained about the lack of information to know the actual statistics of those infected with the deadly disease, because, as he said, “talking about sex with indigenous peoples is hard to be a taboo subject.”
The lack of knowledge of the cultures of these peoples and illiteracy are also constraints and the smaller the group the harder it is to address the issue of AIDS, he added.
An indigenous woman said they only know so far that there condoms to prevent disease, and regretted that the state does not have an information campaign on AIDS.
However, Castro said that for a year there is an awareness campaign in different Mayan languages, in order to raise awareness and prevent AIDS, but acknowledged that there are weaknesses to be performed within the rural area.
The official described as “worrying” that has been underestimated by 58 percent of official cases, and announced that it will develop a studio next year to update the figures.
He explained that this gap is because the first AIDS case was discovered in Guatemala in 1984, but the program was created in 2000 as “implies” a “delay” of 16 years in defining policies to counteract the evil.
For its part, the director of Naleb Agency, the Indian Álvaro Pop, commented that “the most alarming is the lack of preventive policies and information.
Pop said that many Guatemalans deported from U.S. arrive are infected with HIV but are unaware of and spread to his family.
The Centre for Legal Action, Juana Batzibal, sued health authorities to launch an awareness campaign on the issue, but considering that this country is multicultural and multilingual.