Aids And Hiv In Latin America And The Caribbean

Of the more than 40 million people around the world currently living with HIV/AIDS, two million live in Latin America and the Caribbean. In an engaging chronicle illuminated by his travels in the region, Shawn Smallman shows how the varying histories and cultures of the nations of Latin America have influenced the course of the pandemic. He demonstrates that a disease spread in an intimate manner is profoundly shaped by impersonal forces. In Latin America, Smallman explains, the AIDS pandemic has fractured into a series of subepidemics, driven by different factors in each country. Examining cultural issues and public policies at the country, regional, and global levels, he discusses why HIV has had such a heavy impact on Honduras, for instance, while leaving the neighboring state of Nicaragua relatively untouched, and why Latin America as a whole has kept infection rates lower than other global regions, such as Africa and Asia. Smallman draws on the most recent scientific research as well as his own interviews with AIDS educators, gay leaders, drug traffickers, crack addicts, transvestites, and doctors in Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico. Highlighting the realities of gender, race, sexuality, poverty, politics, and international relations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Smallman brings a fresh perspective to understanding the cultures of the region as well as the global AIDS crisis.

Exploring the mechanisms and strategies used in different cultures across Hispano-America and the Caribbean to narrativise, represent and understand HIV/AIDS as a social and human phenomenon, this book examines a wide range of cultural, artistic and media texts, as well as issues of human phenomenology, to understand the ways in which HIV positive individuals make sense of their own lives, and of the ways in which the rest of society sees them. Drawing on a variety of cultural texts from cinema, television, photography and literature, the author considers the manner in which contemporary cultural forms have shaped a body of public opinion in response to the social and cultural impact of HIV/AIDS, re-interpreting the condition in the light of advances in treatment. With attention to both the temporality and spatiality of production, this book examines whether heterosexual and homosexual, and masculine and feminine bodies are narrativised in the same manner, considering the question of whether representations foster discrimination of any kind. The book also asks whether representations across Latin America are homogenous or varied according to national, social or cultural context, and explores the commonalities between the representations of HIV/AIDS in Hispano-America and the Caribbean and other global narratives. A detailed study of the various representations of HIV/AIDS and the construction of public opinion, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural, media and film studies, the sociology of health, the body and illness, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

The first book on the shocking reality of AIDS in Latin America.

It is estimated in this region that more than half a million people are infected with HIV. Efforts are needed if inroads are to be made against the AIDS epidemic. Although many Caribbean governments have initiated a limited response to HIV/AIDS much remains to be done. This report provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities in addressing the problem of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. It presents a snapshot of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region and offers examples of ways in which Caribbean countries and regional bodies such as the Caribbean Community have responded to the epidemic, discusses alternative actions for addressing the crisis and highlights a range of strategies for donor coordination and cooperation in the region. Finally the report identifies the potential role of the World Bank in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean