Authorities Fail to Notify 2,000 HIV-Positive Chileans
OpenForum | May 13, 2009 | 0 Comments
A health scandal swept the South American nation of Chile in November 2008, as the new health minister, Alvaro Erazo, disclosed that the public health system and private sector services had failed to notify nearly 2,000 citizens of their HIV-positive status, according to a New York Times report.
Not only does Chile face the risk of further infections due to the victims of this notification lag, but also, as the dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Chile estimated, about 40,000 additional Chileans may not know they are infected with HIV. AIDS advocacy groups Vivo Positivo and Asosida issued a joint statement condemning the notification failure, calling it, “a flagrant violation of human rights and of the right to life” (Times). The magnitude of this problem in Chile highlights the oft-ignored dysfunction of health organizations even in countries that are not among the hemisphere’s poorest. Moreover, the Chilean Ministry of Health’s National AIDS Commission estimates that by 2010 AIDS will be the nation’s leading cause of death. It is time that the world health community and the media, which focuses more often than not on the problems of more devastated or poverty-stricken countries, recognize that Chile may be facing an endemic AIDS crisis in the coming years.
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