16th March
New HIV Cases Rise
By Macushla N. Pinder
The number of new HIV infections recorded in The Bahamas increased by 50 in 2005 after falling several consecutive years, Director of the AIDS Foundation Dr. Perry Gomez revealed yesterday.
New statistics indicate that approximately 6,853 people in The Bahamas are known to be HIV infected or have AIDS. According to health officials, the number of AIDS victims is actually estimated to be 5,243.
Over the past two decades 3,162 have died from AIDS and AIDS related illnesses, according to Ministry of Health statistics, which show that during that period 10,479 persons tested positive for HIV infections.
"It demonstrates that we have to continue preaching the message of prevention because it is not enough just to treat and keep people well," said Dr. Gomez, during the launch of a new region-wide condom promotion campaign. The main target group is sexually active at-risk youths between the ages 15 – 25.
"It’s important to prevent this through education, condom use, abstinence and so on. We have to keep pushing those messages so that these figures continue to fall."
Slated to begin running the last week in April, the ads will be aired on television stations throughout The Caribbean, including ZNS, according to Kerry Singh, sales and marketing manager for the Society for Family Health (SFH), a social marketing organization.
SFH is a member of Population Services International (PSI), reportedly the leading nonprofit social marketing organization in the world.
SFH is donor funded, its main objectives being to promote acceptability and broad access to condoms and condoms purchases, safer sexual practices among youths and other high-risk groups while decreasing the barriers to consistent condom use.
"At this stage, we are looking at running the campaign definitely until the end of the year, possibly into 2007," said Mr. Singh, whose main focus is increasing the distribution of condoms and to work with the commercial sector to see how availability and price could be positively affected.
The slogan and logo for the mass media awareness is "Got It? Get It."
The logo’s colours are yellow and black, symbolic of "caution" and the slogan is outlined by an outer circle, which depicts a condom.
"Got It? Get It. Speaks to condom access in youth friendly outlets. Caribbean Reggae, hip-hop and soca artists will be endorsing and promoting the logos through radio and television ads," Dr. Gomez said.
"An integral component of the project is identifying and providing access to non-traditional/under-utilized distribution points such as barbershops, beauty salons, bars, clubs and hotels (condom friendly outlets) to support the increased demand creation by the mass media advertising campaign.
"This will provided an integrated approach to the marketing and distribution of condoms in The Bahamas, and go a long way in encouraging safer sexual practices among the youth."
The PSI Caribbean project will span Antigua and Barbuda; Barbados; Belize; Dominica; Grenada; Montserrat; St. Kitts and Nevis; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and The Grenadines; Suriname; Trinidad and Tobago; and The Bahamas.
The region-wide condom promotion campaign has been developed using youthful, trendy, upbeat styles. Mr. Singh explained that a serious attempt was made at giving the campaign’s one-minute television advertisements "street value" considering its target group.
"We wanted them to sound as if it (the advice) was coming from someone’s best friend. Everyone looking at the ad within our target group should be able to relate to one of the characters," he said.
"Around all of this, we are trying to partner with MTV Tempo on this campaign because their markets are very similar to what we are after…The reality is youths look up to these entertainment artists, whereas a parent and a teacher may not have that influence."
The advertisements address key issues associated with condoms, like availability and accessibility as well as some of the issues surrounding safer sex and its methodologies.
"The ads were designed to look at several of the important issues around youth sexually active…. Unfortunately, a lot of the information that is being passed on is not correct, neither is it safe," said Salorne McDonald, SFH behavior change communications manager.
"We also look at the fact that women using and buying their own condoms is still very much a closeted issue and the fact that women need to be extra, extra careful. They are three times more likely to contract the virus."
The Bahama Journal - Bahamas News Online Edition
