A recent World Bank Report on the HIV/AIDS pandemic focusing on the the spread of infection in Central America has once again shown that Belizeans suffer the highest rate of infection in all Central America. The report puts Belizean infection rate at a whopping 2%! That’s around six thousand infections by my own calculation.

“HIV adult prevalence seems to be highest in Belize (2 percent), followed by Honduras (1.6 percent), Panama (1.5 percent), Guatemala (1 percent), El Salvador (0.6 percent), Costa Rica (0.6 percent), and Nicaragua (0.2 percent), based on UNAIDS estimates.”

The report goes further stating that though most infections are still being found in “high risk” demographics (sex workers, prisoners, and men who have sex with men) some areas of Belize are suffering a “generalized” infection: A pattern of infection which is not localized to certain demographics but is across the board.

“The epidemic is generally concentrated in high-risk populations such as men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, prisoners, the Garifuna (an Afro-Caribbean population group) in the case of Honduras, street children and the security forces. However, the World Bank makes it clear that there are significant exceptions: the disease is becoming generalized in some areas of Belize and the epidemic can still be classified as nascent in Nicaragua.”

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