Abantu Abaafu! People are dying HIV/AIDS is predominantly a sexually transmitted disease, it causes illness and death among mature adults.The groups at greatest risk are those between 15 and 50 years of age, often described as the `sexually active` these are the most productive in our society.Essays local and international are personal initiatives of sharing the existing references to the public, and the failure to respond to the social and economic impact of HIV and AIDS, what we must learn from this global epidemic and what we must do.It is about the need to look beyond the individual to social and economic conditions, to see health as more than medicine, to understand the concept of `well being`.

It is about the long term efforts of large scale death and illness as they will echo through common history.Despite millennia of epidemics, war and famine, never before in history have death rates of this magnitude been seen among young adults of both sexes and from all walks of life (Tony Burnett & Alan Whiteside CHP1-P3)

The aims and objectives

Of the existing Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) consists of six island nations (Antigua & Baruda-Dominica-Grenada-St.Kitts & Nevis-St.Lucia-St.Vincent the Grenadines and three dependent territories (Anguilla -British Virgin Islands and Monsterrat)Each nation is very small in size and there is a high degree of mobility between them, Because of these factors, important economic and social issues are tackled through a co-ordinated response by the sub-region, which has declared HIV/AIDS one of its priority issues.Approximately 5000 individuals are infected of whom only one hundred are currently receiving treatment.The adult prevalence estimates for the different regions of the world, the data shows that the Caribbean ranks second to Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate of 1.9% percent, this compares to Latin America with a rate of 0.5% percent.

The epidemiology of the disease in the region studies of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC) and the University of the Westindies (UWI) suggests that the predominant mode of transmission of the virus is still via sexual contact of which 63% can be classified as heterosexual and 12% due to homo-sexual male-to-male contact (CAREC/1997) statistics suggest (Caribbean task forces on HIV/AIDS ) that 70% of all cases in the regions are among the 15-40 age group. (www.caribvoice.org/Health/Aids & economics.html)

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