Candid talk at first Aids forum |21 April 2006

Likewise, the cumulative figure for those infected since the disease was first detected here in 1987 may be as high as 2,480 despite statistics which show as if there have been only 248 cases in Seychelles so far.

The Minister for Health and Social Services, Vincent Meriton, said this yesterday, when he opened the first ever forum on the pandemic, which was held at the International Conference Centre.

As did the minister, several other professionals candidly gave facts and figures about the HIV/Aids situation in Seychelles and around the world, as they prepared to share ideas with representatives of different partners from all sectors of life who are involved in efforts to control the spread of the pandemic.

“Seychelles already has nine new recorded cases of HIV/Aids this year. Seven males and two females have been diagnosed to have HIV/Aids and they include an 18-year-old girl,” the new Aids Control Programme manager, Colette Servina, announced.

She said children as young as 10 years are reportedly engaging in sexual activity, and girls aged only 19 are known to have had up to 10 partners, many of them much older than themselves, in addition to being sexually active with boys their own age.

She said that although more than half a million condoms were distributed last year, people are still engaging in unsafe sexual behaviour, and that there are more “family replacement” rather than “voluntary” blood donors in the country, who feel pressured to give blood, and who yield rather than refuse and risk being suspected of being infected even when they are.

She nevertheless gave the assurance that donated blood has been screened for HIV since 1987 when the first case of HIV/Aids was reported here, and there has been no transmission of the condition through transfusion.

The World Health Organisation liaison officer for Seychelles, Dr. Cornelia Atsyor, gave an overview of the situation around the world, saying that sub-saharan Africa is the worst affected area on Earth, and that globally, 10 new cases of HIV/Aids occur every minute.

Addressing the partners in the HIV/Aids fight, who included Vice-President Joseph Belmont, several Cabinet Ministers and members of the diplomatic corps, Minister Meriton said that certain situations require that people are candid, and that was why he “went right down to the crux of the matter.”

“Let us not measure the HIV/Aids epidemic in Seychelles in terms of disease and death today, but tomorrow,” he said, adding that UNAIDS asserts that in order to gauge the real magnitude of the condition in any country, one should multiply by 10 every confirmed case of HIV/Aids.

“If this assertion is right, then there would have been 450 new cases on our islands last year, and around 2,480 cases in all so far,” the minister said, noting that such unsettling figures can impact on the country’s fragile economy.

He said that every HIV/Aids battle must go deep into the community, leaving no individual behind, and addressing issues surrounding behaviour change.

Minister Meriton urged the partners, who had convened to be apprised on the situation and discuss possible solutions and to seek answers to questions which presented themselves, such as:
“What are you and I doing to prevent ourselves and others from getting infected?
He warned that the magnitude of the problem is such that unless a relentless battle is mounted and won, “Aids will kill us, first one by one, then 10 by 10 and eventually 100s by 100s, until we are all gone.”