Targeting Young People Key to Combating AIDS

But he noted that young people have not been targeted "well enough and soon enough".

Professor Plummer made this point during a presentation on 'Deepening Our Understanding of HIV/AIDS Education in the Caribbean' on 24 July 2006 at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, UK.

He was speaking on his first visit to the Secretariat since he took up the post of Commonwealth-UNESCO Chair at the University of the West Indies in October 2005. This academic position is supported by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation.

In his talk, Professor Plummer highlighted the evidence in support of HIV awareness-raising programmes that target education in the Caribbean, the second most severely affected HIV/AIDS region in the world.

"The Bahamas, for example, has a low HIV prevalence during early teenage years. Other Caribbean nations have broadly similar patterns," he said.

"These low HIV levels raise the important possibility that if children can be kept uninfected into adulthood, then HIV can be largely removed from the population in the space of as little as a generation. This period of low HIV prevalence among children is referred to by the World Bank as the 'window of hope'."

However, Professor Plummer prefers to call it a "world of hope".

He also put the spotlight on the 'feminisation' of the epidemic.

He pointed out that in Trinidad and Tobago, HIV infection levels are six times higher among females between 15 and 19 years of age than males in the same age group. Similarly, teenage girls in Jamaica were two-and-a-half times more likely to be infected with HIV compared to their male counterparts.

"We must write men into the picture more strongly before we can deal with HIV," stated Professor Plummer. "HIV awareness programmes should focus on the formation of safe behaviours from the outset rather than attempting to change entrenched risky behaviours."

Professor Plummer, who holds a medical degree with a doctorate in sociology, also made a plea for better research. "We need to develop skills and sustainability in AIDS research, which will lead to richer discourses."

Steps in the right direction are already being taken. From December 2006, the University of the West Indies will offer a part-time, two-year masters programme in health promotion, which will use the issue of HIV/AIDS as its chief educational vehicle.

"This one-of-its-kind course will have 12 to 25 students in the first batch," said Professor Plummer. "Down the line, we hope to invite experts from Commonwealth countries to share their knowledge with our students so that comparative analysis can be done."

Key Links:

• Gender
• Health
• Education
• Fund for Technical Co-operation

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• UNESCO