ADAP Advocacy Association Cautions that Hospitalized Patients Living with HIV/AIDS in Puerto Rico going without Medications;

Local Advocates Call on Officials to Provide Proper Health Management & Treatment

WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 24, 2012) - The ADAP Advocacy Association, also known as aaa+, today joined local advocates in Puerto Rico calling for better health management and treatment of patients living with HIV/AIDS who are hospitalized and going without their anti-retroviral (ARV) medications. The dire circumstances facing these patients was first brought to light by two organizations, AIDS Patients pro Sane Policy and the Permanent Assembly of Persons Infected and Affected with HIV/AIDS (APPIA).

"The ADAP Advocacy Association is concerned whenever people living with HIV/AIDS are being denied access to care and treatment, and our colleagues in Puerto Rico have sounded the cautionary alarm," said Brandon M. Macsata, CEO of the ADAP Advocacy Association.

The news media outlet el Nuevo Dia reported earlier this week that patients were not being provided their ARV medications, and in some cases the family was being asked to provide them. The original posting can be viewed online at http://www.elnuevodia.com/otroatropelloalospacientesconvihsida-1188292.html.

"What is really needed to end these senseless deaths is the political will and true commitment first do no harm," argued Anselmo Fonseca, spokesman for AIDS Patients pro Sane Policy. "Dealing with humans as numbers, really affects me, 30 years into this epidemic no one should be dying from lack of treatment."

According to Fonseca, advocates in Puerto Rico spoke with officials from the office where these alarmingly high death stats were generated in an attempt to understand their source, but this inquiry only made things worse. 

While doctors document the cause of death, often they leave out the primary diagnosis of HIV/AIDS due to stigma, at the families request, even after death and only put the complications.

He further said, "These number can be even more alarming, but based on the practice of averages, we can guesstimate that approximately 400 deaths occur annually."

To learn more about the ADAP Advocacy Association, or the crisis in Puerto Rico, please contact Brandon M. Macsata by phone at (305) 519-4256 or email at info@adapadvocacyassociation.org.

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