U.N. Says Ecuador at "Appropriate Moment" to Act Against HIV/AIDS

Washington -- It is the right time for Ecuador to act to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS within its borders, says an official with the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF).

In an October 20 statement, UNICEF's Paul Martin said that although the incidence of AIDS in Ecuador -- a country of about 13 million people -- is low compared to sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is spreading at an "alarming rate," especially among women and children. Because of this, Martin said, "preventive action and education are needed so that the evolving history" of HIV/AIDS, "which has resulted in the current dramatic situation in several countries of sub-Saharan Africa, does not repeat itself" in Ecuador.

Martin said HIV/AIDS is affecting women and children in Ecuador at rates higher than ever before. Since 1984, there have been 5,630 officially recorded cases of HIV/AIDS in Ecuador, with 1,546 cases resulting in deaths, Martin said. In 1994, men had much higher rates of HIV/AIDS infection than women, with approximately seven men infected for every one infected woman, but in 2004 that ratio had been reduced to 2-to-1.

Of the 1800 cases of HIV/AIDS reported in Ecuador in 2003, more than 80 percent of the cases were in Ecuador's coastal region, with the majority of those cases in Guayas Province, whose capital is Guayaquil. The country's Sierra highlands region had 17 percent of the cases reported nationally, Martin said.

Overall in Latin America, Martin said, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the adult population of the region stands between 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent, as compared to sub-Saharan Africa's rate of 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent, the highest rate in the world.