Statistics show that at the end of 2011, an estimated 230,000 people were living with HIV in the Caribbean. An estimated 13,000 people in the region became infected with HIV in 2011 and around 10,000 died of AIDS. In the Bahamas, the country with the highest prevalence in the Caribbean, almost 3% of the adult population is living with HIV. This level of HIV prevalence is found only in sub-Saharan Africa, making the Caribbean the second most affected region in the world.
The mounting of one hundred and eighty three (183) Testing Centres across the Caribbean is an increase on last year’s total with Trinidad and Tobago conducting tests at 48 centres up from 39 sites. Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica and Guyana and French Guyana have also increased Testing Sites.
This year’s staging of Regional Testing Day will also see a number of innovations. There will be expanded periods of testing; while June 28, 2013 is the official Regional Testing Day Trinidad and Tobago is conducting tests between June 15 and June 29. Guyana will be testing between June 27 and June 30 with the continued support of the faith-based community, which will be hosting 11 of the 22 centres at churches across the country. Antigua and Barbuda will be testing between the 21st and the 29th, the Cayman Islands will start on the 22nd, French Guyana be testing between June 25th and 28 while Barbados will be extending testing until June 30th when it will be conducting testing in 3 churches of 3 denominations and in 3 different parishes (St. Aidan’s in St. Joseph; Jackson Church of God, St Michael and Truth for the Final Generation Adventist Church, Redman’s Village, St. Thomas).
In St. Lucia Rapid Testing will be the focus of Regional Testing Day 2013. The public will be provided with confidential, rapid and quality HIV testing services with results expected within 1 hour.
In the British Virgin Islands, in addition to HIV testing, a Regional Testing Day Health & Wellness Expo will be staged on Friday June 28th at The Noel Lloyd Positive Action Movement Park with the support of fifteen organisations.
A major component of activities surrounding Regional Testing Day is the four week media campaign mounted by the 112 top broadcasters in 24 countries across the region that make up the Caribbean Broadcast Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS. This year apart from the broadcast of PSAs and interviews there a number of member stations have gone further.
JTV in the British Virgin Islands has posted interviews with Representatives of the National AIDS Programme to YouTube which are available on the spotlight page on the website http://www.jtvlive.net/spotlight.html as well as on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcI1yxzGQS4. The station has also produced a feature coming out of the interview which can be accessed at http://www.jtvlive.net/ on the home page or click the YouTube link.
In explaining how it all started CBMP Executive Director Dr. Allyson Leacock says, “We began by reaching out to Scotiabank and they readily said they would offer their branches as testing locations. Then we reached out to PANCAP who willingly contacted the ministries and departments of health and CBMP mounted a month long radio and television campaign to promote the testing sites in each country.
This partnership continues today and has grown. After starting with just 6 countries and 2,300 people being tested, six years later over 20 countries are participating and over 30, 000 Caribbean people have been tested – over 13,000 were tested in 2012.”
Kaz Flinn, Scotiabank’s Vice-President for Corporate Social Responsibility underscored the Bank’s on-going commitment to the fight against HIV and AIDS. “Scotiabank has deep roots and a strong commitment to communities in the Caribbean and we believe strongly in the work the CBMP is doing to promote HIV Testing Day and raise awareness of this important issue. In 2011 the Bank launched our global HIV-AIDS strategy focusing on the work the Bank is doing to support these initiatives through the Scotiabank Bright Future program. This strategy and the Bank’s support of programs like this underscore our commitment to promoting the health of the communities where we live and work.”
HIV counselling and testing is an important entry point into comprehensive HIV prevention and treatment programs and services. Counselling and testing programs provide an opportunity for more people to know their HIV status; for the negative client to receive risk reduction counselling and support to stay negative; and, for HIV infected client to be referred early into treatment and care programs and further counselled and supported.
The CBMP, in its media led coalition, sees this as an extremely important step in de-stigmatizing the process of getting tested and knowing your status. Broadcast media executives in the CBMP have enabled life-saving messages through the CBMP’s LIVE UP campaign and have made HIV/AIDS a business priority. The media is a critical vehicle in helping Caribbean people accept HIV testing as a necessary and healthy process like any other medical check up.
Dr. Leacock says, “In order to build awareness about Regional Testing Day, the CBMP and its 112 top broadcast members from 24 counties throughout the region will design, produce and distribute a coordinated campaign of radio and television ads reaching tens of thousands of people for the month preceding the testing day. It is our way of showing how media matters in our efforts as Caribbean people to achieve an AIDS-free generation.” The radio and TV campaign began on the day of the Media Launch on Thursday, May 30th at Scotiabank, High Street, St. John’s in Antigua.
ABOUT SCOTIABANK
Scotiabank is committed to supporting the communities in which we live and work, both in Canada and abroad, through our global philanthropic program, ‘Bright Future’. Recognized as a leader internationally and among Canadian corporations for our charitable donations and philanthropic activities, Scotiabank has provided on average approximately $47 million annually to community causes around the world over each of the last five years. Visit us at www.scotiabank.com.
ABOUT THE CBMP
The Caribbean Broadcast Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS (CBMP), founded in 2006, unites 112 top broadcasters from 24 countries in the region’s first coordinated media response to the pandemic. The Partnership creates a structured framework for sharing information and resources among broadcasters that significantly expands HIV/AIDS-related programming and public education activities across the Caribbean. Member broadcasters deliver HIV/AIDS information across a variety of platforms and formats, including targeted public service announcements (PSAs), entertainment programming, news and public affairs programming, and online resources.
In March 2007, the CBMP launched the umbrella campaign LIVE UP: Love. Protect. Respect., – an innovative cross-cutting brand to support all of the Partnership’s programming components. LIVE UP is the first media-led campaign on HIV/AIDS to reach across the entire Caribbean. Its core programming components – radio and television public service ads (PSAs), a monthly news magazine television programme and the www.iliveup.com website, Facebook Page and YouTube Channel – inspire audiences of approximately 40 million, especially young people, to consider what is within their power to do to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS. Additional content, developed and produced by individual member companies, supplements the core content. LIVE UP creates a regional movement by linking audiences together across the Caribbean with one message of hope and possibility in an age of HIV and AIDS.
For more information, visit http://www.cbmphiv.org and www.iliveup.com.