When the
epidemic began more than two decades ago, it was the subject of
bigoted jokes about queers and dark fears of the little-known
but terrifying. Though they haven’t yet found a cure or a
vaccine, scientists have been steadily unveiling the mysteries.
People who have died of or lived with AIDS or the HIV infection
that causes it, including a number of well known public
figures, have put names and faces on the great plague of our
times.
Now it’s a
cause that can bring out beauty queens (former Miss Universe
Justine Pasek, second from the left in the photo above, and
recently selected Miss Panama Jessica Rodríguez, fourth
from the left, wearing the sash) and politicians (Mireyista
presidential candidate José Miguel Alemán, the
guy in the red hat unsuccessfully trying to insert himself into
the picture, and supermarket baron Ricardo Martinelli, the guy
in the Yankees hat who was a little more successful at the same
game).
But then there
were public servants who went to the anti-AIDS Walk for Life
not to jump in front of the cameras, but to lend their bodies
and voices because AIDS is a major public policy issue
confronting this nation. Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro was on hand,
along with a delegation of city workers. So was legislator
Balbina Herrera. A number of cops, including a group of police
cadets, participated in the march. The Ministry of Health (and
the health care professions in general) were well represented.
There were people from the United Nations, the American Embassy
and the Peace Corps in the parade. But except possibly for the
desperately trailing Alemán, who after being blocked out
of the picture by Justine Pasek et al sprinted to the front of
the crowd to pose as its leader, this was not an occasion for
political symbolism.
It was, rather,
a public recognition that Panama has the fourth highest rate of
HIV infection in Latin America, and that we have some 8,000
AIDS orphans to look after. It was a somber reminder that since
September of 1984 5,753 AIDS cases have been reported in
Panama, and that 4,277 of these people have died. It was a plea
for political action to a government that has hesitated to
provide the expensive mix of anti-retroviral drugs that can
commute an HIV infection from a near-certain death sentence to
a manageable chronic illness. It was a plea to the Panamanian
people to clean up their act and avoid the unhealthy practices
that spread this disease.
Panama’s
gay community had many members at the Walk for Life through the
November 30 morning drizzle from the corner of Calle 50 and Via
Brasil to Parque Omar, but AIDS is not particularly a “gay
disease” here in Panama. Of those AIDS cases whose route
of transmission is known, 63 percent were from sexual relations
among heterosexuals, 30 percent were transmitted by homosexuals
or bisexuals, and the other seven percent from mothers to their
children. Intervenous drug abuse is not very common in Panama
and we have sanitary practices in our health care system under
control, so needle sharing and blood transfusions are not major
issues here. Gay people are disproportionately infected, but
it's the foolish heterosexual who believes that his or her
sexual orientation confers immunity.
We don’t
know how many people are infected and don’t know it, and
are going around spreading HIV in ignorance. Estimates by
United Nations agencies, national health authorities,
forecasters for the World Bank and local AIDS activists range
from 22,000 to 32,000, but none of these people really know.
The message
that the walk’s organizers, the Foundation for the Welfare
and Dignity of Persons Affected by HIV/AIDS (PROBIDSIDA), want
to spread is that what you don’t know about HIV might not
only hurt you, it can kill you. The people to whom they are
most anxious to impart this understanding are those who are
just beginning to be sexually active, because in this country
most HIV infections are contracted between the ages of 17 and
20, a stage of life at which concepts of mortality are fuzzy at
best in the minds of most individuals. For the same reasons
that armies around the world prefer teenage cannon fodder,
it’s hard to get adolescents to take warnings about
promiscuity and unprotected sex with the proper seriousness.
Yet that is the difficult demographic terrain upon which the
battle against AIDS must be fought.
PROBIDSIDA
offers a number of services, from education and HIV testing on
the prevention side to legal assistance and emotional support
for those who are already infected. They maintain a help and
information telephone line at 800-2525, and can be contacted by
email at Probidsida@hotmail.com.
