Moving Beyond Scapegoats: Media Response to Haiti HIV Origins Study

A Statement by Wyclef Jean

Port-au-Prince, HAITI - Dec. 1, 2007 - World AIDS Day is an opportunity to talk about both the progress and remaining challenges faced by Haiti in the fight against this epidemic. It is also an opportunity to talk about media prejudice that has unfairly targeted our country.

AIDS is a global disease that does not discriminate. The same can not always be said for the media coverage of science, as we have seen from recent headlines stating that a key HIV strain "came from Haiti."

Scientists from the University of Arizona have carried out research regarding on the origins of HIV, which scientists hope will help in the effort to find a cure. Their latest findings suggest that HIV made a pit stop in Haiti on its way from Africa to the United States. However, the headlines picked up on two words - "Haiti" and "HIV" - and the rest of the story was lost.

This current situation recalls earlier and equally distorted headlines some 25 years ago when little was known about HIV and AIDS and Haitians were stigmatized as carriers of the virus simply by virtue of their nationality or ancestry. We still carry the hurt 25 years later.

Making Haiti a scapegoat can only impede global progress on AIDS.  As a partner in the global AIDS response, the media should support the progress Haiti has made and challenge the country and the world to continue to respond to HIV today and in the years ahead, rather than sensationalize a single study.

Despite serious and continuing challenges facing Haiti, the country has pioneered methodologies for managing the spread of HIV in the midst of extreme poverty. Many of these methodologies developed in Haiti are now the norm in other poor parts of the world. And steady progress is being made in providing antiretroviral therapy to people living with HIV.

However, Haiti's HIV epidemic remains serious. Stigma remains common and health systems are underdeveloped. Condom use remains infrequent in rural areas, where HIV prevalence among pregnant women has not decreased. In addition, young people across the country are becoming sexually active at younger ages and have shown very low awareness and use of condoms. Antiretroviral treatment access must also be widened in order to reach all those in need.

Haiti's leadership and its people need support from the international community in order to successfully respond to the country's HIV epidemic and to continue to make our unique contribution to the global response. The media can help by focusing on the future of the AIDS response - in Haiti and around the world.

Wyclef Jean
Founder, Yéle Haiti
Goodwill Ambassador of Haiti

About Yéle Haiti

Yéle Haiti (www.yele.org) is a movement founded by Wyclef Jean that uses music, sports and the media to reinforce projects that are making a difference in education, health, environment and community development. Haitian hip hop musicians trained as HIV peer counselors have turned the experience into raps that have been used to promote HIV/AIDS awareness to rural youth, in partnership with Management and Resources for Community Health (MARCH).