There is a special place in Cuba called Los Cocos, originally located in rural Havana at Santiago de las Vegas. Its purpose was to house HIV patients in quarantine to keep them out of the general population and allow the military and medical community to watch the progression of the disease and administer medical assistance. The year was 1988. Los Cocos, while enlarged and moved closer to the city of Havana so that family members could find housing nearby the facility and attempt to be hired for needed cash, still exists. And it still acts as a holding farm for HIV patients.
As objectionable from a humanitarian standpoint as the plan sounds, it has managed to keep Cuba HIV infection rate at less than .1 percent, the lowest in all the Western hemisphere. Cuba’s population is about the same as New York City, where the HIV infection rate is ten times higher.
Despite a shortage of drugs courtesy of the U.S. blockade with the island nation, Cuba has managed to seemingly do the impossible. It has contained the virus, educated its population, found ways to treat those who are infected for free, scheduled six-day seminars to educate those with the disease, and has now made living in Los Cocos and twelve other HIV farms optional.
The surprising reality is that many in the sanatoria (as they are called) select to stay in the hospitals once they are free to leave. They are fed, medicated, clothed, and allowed to work if they care to.
The first case of HIV was not diagnosed in Cuba until 1985, and did not initially infect the homosexual population. The first occupants of Los Cocos were primarily soldiers or missionaries returning from years of service in Africa. Heterosexuals all.
By 1988, the number of HIV-infected Cubans numbered 190, with 21% being gay. In a macho Latino culture, there was little of the gay stigma associated with the disease as it was in the U.S. since an equal number of men and women in Cuba were infected.
By 1993, sistema de aten?ion ambulatoria (SAA), a new day care program was introduced, allowing patients to choose between living on a HIV farm and living at home. Regardless of their choice, all patients receive special dietary choices including supplements, milk, high fiber food and fresh organic vegetables.
As of 2000, HIV education was introduced in a six-day Living with AIDS program that all infected individuals were required to complete. Most of those teaching the seminars were HIV positive individuals themselves.
In Cuban prisons, there are no convicts with HIV. All infected criminals have been moved to special guarded sanatoriums where they receive specialized treatment and re-education.
As for those currently living in the sanatoria like Los Cobos, they are prospering thanks to the arrival of free drugs provided by outside countries. The number of deaths from the disease is so low as to be almost immeasurable—this in the Caribbean which has the second largest number of new cases of HIV in the world.
But not our “enemy” Cuba. With a major tourism industry growing each year, advertised as a place for sexy romps and casino play, the rate of infection in this third-world country is still so low as to be noteworthy.
This is not to say that we should open HIV farms and quarantine the sick. But it is very possible that parts of the plan that has been so successful in Cuba may help guide our domestic policy which has been less than successful at preventing new cases, particularly among those 18-28. This country that we so quickly malign for its faults should be at least acknowledged for its success at protecting and educating its citizens. Let us learn from any source we can find that might help guide the way by example.
