Editor—The national policy for HIV/AIDS of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lacks implementation strategies (www.moh.gov.ae/moh_site/prev_med/anbk/s19.htm). There is a political reluctance to identify high risk groups and debate AIDS.1 Instead, authorities rely on mandatory HIV testing. HIV positive nationals are barred from government employment, educational institutions, and drawing on the marriage fund, contravening the regulations of the International Labour Organization, of which the UAE is a member.
Legal and political restraints prevent non-governmental organisations from working with risk groups. Young people's sexual concerns are ignored since they are considered sexually inactive. Men, unwilling to wait for sanctioned sex, have sex with other men in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Yemen.1 Homosexual sex is punishable by death or subject to forced hormone treatments, making harm reduction absent. Child protection organisation ECPAT identifies the UAE as the most cited destination for sex trafficking (www.ecpat.org.uk/).
HIV infection in intravenous drug users is high: 73% of prisoners are HIV positive in Bahrain1 and 66% in one Iranian city.2 Similar trends are likely in the UAE.
Nearly 80% of infections in the Middle East and North Africa are heterosexually transmitted.3 In Saudi Arabia, women are infected by their husbands' engagement in extramarital sex.4 The same trend for Emirati women is suggested (El-Khatib, personal communication, May 2005). Evidence is inconclusive, but premarital sex seems to be increasing. The teaching of sexual health in schools is limited and censors edit textbooks. HIV/AIDS is covered as part of the science curriculum.5
The UAE's gross domestic product during 2000-25 could be reduced by 25.6% as a result of not investing in prevention, for example.1 The international community can help avert an epidemic by encouraging the UAE to tackle HIV immediately.
Competing interests: None declared.
References
- 1.Robalino DA, Jenkins C, El Maroufi K, eds. Risks and macroeconomic impacts of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: Why waiting to intervene can be so costly. Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2002. http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/mna/mena.nsf/Attachments/WP±26/$File/WP-26.pdf
- 2.Nakhaee FH. Prisoners' knowledge of HIV/AIDS and its prevention in Kerman, Islamic Republic of Iran. East Mediterr Health J 2002;8(6). www.emro.who.int/Publications/EMHJ/0806/index.htm [PubMed]
- 3.UNAIDS. 2004 report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. 4th global report. Geneva, Switzerland: UNAIDS, 2004.
- 4.Madani TA, Al-Mazrou Y, Al-Jeffri M, Al Huzaim N. Epidemiology of the human immunodeficiency virus in Saudi Arabia; 18-year surveillance results and preventions from an Islamic perspective. BMC Infect Dis 2004;4(25). [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- 5.Bardsley D. Anti-AIDS drive a great success. Gulf News 2004;1: 3. [Google Scholar]