Japan donates equipment to fight AIDS

Even though there thousands of Belizeans living with HIV/AIDS, only a few hundred are aware of their condition. These people can tell you that treatment for this deadly disease is not close to where it should be in Belize. Well today, the Japanese government made a donation to G.O.B. that will make a significant impact in the treatment of infected persons. This morning, C.E.O. of the Ministry of Health, Henry Anderson accepted close to sixty thousand U.S. dollars from the Charge d’ Affairs, Kazuhiro Fujimura, of the Embassy of Japan. The money will be used to purchase a FACS count system, which calculates the cell levels of HIV positive patients. Cell count is critical to the start and proper monitoring of anti-retroviral therapy. Latest statistics indicate that seventy-two people were diagnosed with AIDS in 2001 and three hundred and ten tested positive for HIV. So far the epidemic has claimed three hundred lives and health officials believe there may be as many as eight thousand people living with HIV/AIDS in Belize.