Ecuador Suffers "Alarming" Levels of AIDS: Health Ministry

QUITO, Ecuador now has an "alarming" level of AIDS infections, with 18 of the country's 22 provinces reporting infections of the disease, the country's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The country reported nearly 76,000 cases of the deadly disease nationwide in 2004, although AIDS organizations say the true figure is much much higher.

The country's Health Ministry Spokesman Washington Aleman said the region of Guayas has the largest number of HIV infections and its capital Guayquil has the largest number of AIDS cases.

Aleman also said Ecuador had passed a law to help expectant mothers who have AIDS, saying attention should be paid to prevent their children from contracting the disease.

The disease was first detected in Ecuador in 1984, with eight people tested HIV-positive and six of them developing into full- blown AIDS.

Ecuador Population below poverty line

Population below poverty line: 48.3%

Poor growth and economic instability have crippled Ecuador's capacity to reduce poverty. This report argues that economic growth depends closely on productivity growth, which in turn depends on the quality of inputs (labor and capital), institutions and policies. This connection between productivity and economic growth has become even more relevant in recent years, after Ecuador decided to adopt the US dollar as the national currency, hence forgoing the option of using exchange rate policy to generate temporary increases in competitiveness and growth. Although the decision to dollarize undoubtedly improved the investment climate, reassured potential investors and potentially increased the capacity of the economy to create employment and reduce poverty, sustained increases in productivity will be required to maintain positive growth rates and declining poverty rates in the future.