BOGOTA – Social and economic inequality, to which in some cases can be added the lack of government attention, is spreading the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a report presented here Friday by the International Red Cross.

Besides such vast differences as between Haiti, the hardest hit country of all, and Chile, which has the fewest cases, the study shows the low incidence of the illness in Ecuador and Argentina, as well as the progress being made in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, recalled Francisco Moreno, general director of health for the Colombian Red Cross.

The report urges that more attention be given to people running the highest risk.

In Latin America at least 140,000 new infections were recorded in 2007, according to the latest estimate, with the number of HIV-positive people rising to 1.7 million in the region.

During the same period some 63,000 people died of AIDS, the report said.

In the Caribbean, the report indicates that in 2007 some 230,000 people had HIV, and of these about 75 percent were from the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola.

In the Caribbean this year some 20,000 people were infected and 14,000 died, again mainly in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Yesid Estrada, director of HIV prevention at Colombia’s Red Cross, said that inequality widens the health gap.

In a statement to Efe, Estrada said that the greatest incidence of the pandemic takes place among the most vulnerable part of the population and minorities, as in the case of Colombia, where a great proportion of those affected are people displaced by the country’s internal conflict.

These patients also suffer a social stigma and, in many cases, violence, he said.

The expert stressed the contribution of groups like the Red Cross in Latin America and in the Caribbean for controlling the pandemic and banishing some of the stigma and discrimination.

The study finds that those at the highest risk are young people, sex workers and their clients, gays, transsexuals, prison inmates, drug addicts and mobile populations.

According to the report, those groups have the least chance of taking advantage of campaigns for disease prevention and for raising awareness to the problem.

Those living in remote areas like Indians are also vulnerable groups.

National societies of the Red Cross in Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia develop specific prevention programs to include indigenous populations, the report said. EFE