Jamaica's smallest parish of Hanover once recorded the lowest figures of cases of persons living with HIV, but not anymore as the parish is now ranked third behind St. James and Kingston in the amount of persons living with the virus.
“Many of our young people are affected and infected by it (HIV/AIDS) and we recognized that even though we have been we have been doing our education programme, many of the persons are unemployed and it makes them powerless” a concerned Christopher Fogo, regional behavioral change communications coordinator for the western region (HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme) informed
He added that such trends are a huge concern as the island’s smallest parish of approximately 70,000 residents is ranked third in the island behind St. James and the Kingston and St. Andrew area. The rate of HIV infection in Hanover is 890 persons per 100,000 people in within the population in the parish.
This issue of unemployment he added is behind "some of the decision that they make as it is not because they really want to do it, but the whole issue of survival is important so people will do almost anything to survive. We must also bear in mind that the tourism and entertainment industry in Hanover which also attracts sex.”
In a bid to get the message of safe sexual practices out Fogo stated that their health department has been doing training with the young people, parents and different groups, in addition to promoting safer sex in the communities and working within the schools.
While the efforts has steadily gained traction among the various groups Fogo was not too pleased with the idea that several under aged children were being left unattended by parents or guardians who then become susceptible to negative influences.
“Some of the young people (school-age) are often left unattended they often times find themselves into some places where they’re influenced and would really like the support to ensure that is does not happen. If you look at what is happening in St. James where young people get involved in the lottery scam and after a while they don’t even want to hear about HIV prevention because the now have money and that also will fuel the epidemic and that is also filtering into Hanover so we have to be careful” Fogo warned.
“Many of our young people are affected and infected by it (HIV/AIDS) and we recognized that even though we have been we have been doing our education programme, many of the persons are unemployed and it makes them powerless” a concerned Christopher Fogo, regional behavioral change communications coordinator for the western region (HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme) informed
He added that such trends are a huge concern as the island’s smallest parish of approximately 70,000 residents is ranked third in the island behind St. James and the Kingston and St. Andrew area. The rate of HIV infection in Hanover is 890 persons per 100,000 people in within the population in the parish.
This issue of unemployment he added is behind "some of the decision that they make as it is not because they really want to do it, but the whole issue of survival is important so people will do almost anything to survive. We must also bear in mind that the tourism and entertainment industry in Hanover which also attracts sex.”
In a bid to get the message of safe sexual practices out Fogo stated that their health department has been doing training with the young people, parents and different groups, in addition to promoting safer sex in the communities and working within the schools.
While the efforts has steadily gained traction among the various groups Fogo was not too pleased with the idea that several under aged children were being left unattended by parents or guardians who then become susceptible to negative influences.
“Some of the young people (school-age) are often left unattended they often times find themselves into some places where they’re influenced and would really like the support to ensure that is does not happen. If you look at what is happening in St. James where young people get involved in the lottery scam and after a while they don’t even want to hear about HIV prevention because the now have money and that also will fuel the epidemic and that is also filtering into Hanover so we have to be careful” Fogo warned.
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