Services for Rape Victims in a VCT Center

Description:

Abstract:
HIV/AIDS is a major pandemic of global concern with huge social, economic and ethical consequences. Because of the rapidity of the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean, governments, public health workers and members of the public are understandably concerned with preventing and controlling the spread of the disease in the Caribbean. However, the tools often employed often lack ethical considerations because there are few functional national or institutional ethical committees to provide guidelines for research on HIV/AIDS. In this paper, we discuss some of the ethical issues arising from research on HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. Such issues include -the use of students participation in studies - without formal consent, improper management of results and its release to the public, invasion of privacy of users of condom machines, use of people living with AIDS in awareness campaigns without adequate safeguards for privacy, unfair stigmatizing of people with HIV and migrants, the protection of subjects in drug and vaccine trials. We also describe capacity building efforts towards the establishment of institutional ethics committees and how these ethics committees may safeguard and protect vulnerable groups.