Experience exchange between Italy and Cuba - AIDS emergency

Rome, 25-26 June 2009
NIHMP Conference Hall

NIHMP, in collaboration with the association “Noi Medici per Cuba” (Doctors for Cuba) and the National Association for “Italy-Cuba Friendship” organized the meeting AIDS emergency - experience exchange between Italy and Cuba.
Italy and Cuba have different social and political realities, but they are united in the fight against AIDS. What really marks a difference between the two countries in the control of this disease is the kind of assistance and the prevention models carried out during the last 25 years (since AIDS became an international emergency).
In the various world areas, clinical interventions have been influenced by local, social and economical conditions: while developed countries made considerable investments in vaccine research and information and prevention programs, developing countries, especially in Africa, only faced the epidemic through projects planned and realized by Western association and political campaign. They were very expensive projects but carried out with complete absence of suitable health care services, health providers and structured planning aimed at changing risk behaviours.
On the contrary, countries like India, South Africa and Cuba followed autonomous guidelines, in spite of the low health budgets available.
The meeting aimed at studying in depth the intervention systems adopted in Italy and Cuba for controlling social behaviours and the “isolation” of affected people. The purpose was to enhance and find out the most effective working perspectives by considering the medical and scientific outcomes more fit to the territory, in accordance with the geographical, cultural and social aspects of each reality.