AIDS and Migration

When migrants leave their families behind in search of a better economic future, they sometimes send more back than weekly remittance payments. An article in the New York Times highlights the correlation of migration and the spread of HIV/AIDS in rural Mexico, an area ill-equipped to handle a possible epidemic. While Mexico provides antiretroviral drugs even to its poorest, these are generally dispensed in the country's cities, making it difficult for villagers to receive adequate care.

The rapid spread of the disease is in part linked to the stigma attached to marital infidelity, the article highlights. In addition, many believe that the US is a safer country in every way, thus living in denial of the disease. Men do not tell their wives about encounters they may have had with strangers while in the US, thus infecting wives and in many cases unborn children. Female migrants are often subject to rape and sexual abuse. Given their tenuous legal status, many of these do not seek medical help in the United States. The article quotes George Lemp, an epidemiologist who directs the University of California's AIDS research program: “Migrants are vulnerable. They are isolated. They are exposed to different sexual practices. They have language barriers to services and there is a lot of depression and loneliness and abuse.”

Researchers in the US are already studying these developments closely, but the Mexican government has also begun to address the problem, albeit slowly. It has dispatched health workers into the more rural areas of the country to educate returning migrants and those seeking to leave on the “risks they might face on the road.”

See FPA's Mexico Blog for R.Basas and R.Gupta's complementary posts on Mexico and HIV