1.1 Background to HIV/AIDS epidemic in Developing Country

Over the past 20 years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world has escalated enormously. According to a Center Disease Control (CDC) report (2011), there are currently 120,000 known HIV infected people living in Haiti, 67,000 are females age 14-34, 12,000 are children; and it is predicted that there are 2 times more unknown cases in Haiti than known. AIDS has become a major cause of mortality in the world, and in the past three years, there have been nearly one million AIDS-related deaths (CDC 2011).

The rate of new infections has dropped over the past few years. Whereas in 1998, there was an annual increase of 10% in the rate of infection among adults, this dropped to 5% in 2001 (National Health Department Report for 2001). Most health experts attribute this reduction in the rate of infection to the powerful education campaign which has been Conducted by non-governmental and governmental agencies in the developed countries over the years. In addition, the fact those affordable anti-retroviral drugs are now available at all Government clinics throughout the country mean that the death rate from AIDS is likely to drop over the next few years. However, we already have a sizeable amount of AIDS related death in poor countries due to lack of prevention education and access to clinical care. Research in other developing countries has shown that, prevention education is a major and highly important tool and medicine toward the prevention of HIV/AIDS where the problem lies in a lack of education. If HIV/AIDS, STD Education is not addressed successfully, infection rates will begin to climb again when these school students reach young adulthood.

Children growing up without HIV/AIDS education and parental and community support are more likely to contract the disease than those who were exposed to HIV education. (UNDP Report, 2000). Haiti has very few facilities or services for addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS, and Infectious disease and germs Education. The UNDP mentioned above confirm that children who are educated at a young age regarding HIV/AIDS contracts HIV less than those not educated on the virus. Lack of HIV/AIDS education can lead to the break-up of young families, already devastated by the loss of a parent or parents since January 12, 2010. The difficult logistics of cost-effective institutional care often mean that siblings are separated and children lose their last contact with their family support system. Institutional care has also been shown to be very costly.

In studies done in other developing countries (UNDP 2000), the cost of providing support to AIDS patients within the community has been shown to be done with out human compassion and health care services. The education of HIV/AIDS to the Haitian school population; will indeed contribute toward the declination of newly infected young adults. The battle Of HIV/AIDS will take on a new force and face in Haiti the Haitian students will be the super hero helping the peer educators educates the country as a whole.