Cuba's Fight Against HIV

In the 1980’s, Cuba emerged as one of the leading forces in the fight against HIV in the Caribbean. The new virus stumped doctors as it ravaged and attempted to engulf the small island in disease and squalor. Fortunately, the Cuban government took fast action and put preventative measures into place to both detect and prevent the spread of the HIV virus. Cuba’s aggressive measures included testing citizens for the virus and quarantining those infected who were infected in sanatoriums. The United States has plenty to learn from the small country’s aggressive attack on HIV. If the United States followed the preventative measures that Cuba took, such as mandatory HIV testing and quarantine of HIV positive patients, it could potentially wipe out
These baby steps helped Cuba contain the epidemic. United States citizens are currently not required to take HIV tests. HIV tests may not be administered without consent from a patient, but there are a few exceptions. For example, HIV tests are required every time blood is donated and if a citizen wishes to enlist in the United States military. Testing blood donors prevents the spread of HIV through blood transfusions, but compared to the big picture this effort is miniscule. Mandatory testing for all citizens enables the United States to greatly impact the epidemic. Sanford F. Kuvin argues that “All U.S. measures regarding HIV testing, treatment and tracing are voluntary -- a policy that has resulted in an increase in AIDS cases, many of which could have been prevented by simple public health initiatives” (Kuvin). Part of the problem with mandatory HIV testing is the stigma associated with HIV. Many people associate HIV with intravenous drug use, prostitution, and homosexual men. If testing were required for every citizen the result would be decrease in the prevalence of HIV and stigma associated with HIV might decrease as
By isolating infected people, the disease is prevented from spreading outside of the quarantined area. Quarantine has been used throughout history like in the cases of patients infected with Infectious Tuberculosis, Smallpox, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and various other infectious diseases. In Cuba, HIV positive citizens were put into quarantine. Considering the circumstances, Cuba did the best it could to contain HIV with very limited resources. When the quarantine started in the 1980’s, doctors knew virtually nothing about HIV, so the safest thing to do was to quarantine anyone that tested positive for HIV. Even today some citizens still live in quarantine by choice. Considering that the United States’ HIV infection rate is much higher than Cuba’s, despite the population difference, HIV quarantine seems to work. Instituting an HIV quarantine program in the United States will lower the infection rate. Cuba forcibly quarantined anyone who tested HIV positive. The use of quarantine proved successful in Cuba, Cuba’s HIV infection rate is less than 0.1% (UNICEF). Cuba has the lowest rate of infection in the Caribbean because of the successful quarantine. The military initially controlled the sanatoriums and conditions in the sanatoriums were not ideal. In the late 1980’s, the Ministry of Health and Medicine took over the sanatoriums and brought