#68: Haiti and AIDS : Laleau comments

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:NLaleau@aol.com

While living with campesinos in the coastal region of Ecuador in the 1970s, I 
noticed that they basically "shared needles" -- i.e., there was one woman in 
the area who knew how to give injections.  When someone had an infection, he 
went into town to a pharmacy and got some antibiotics (no prescription 
required) and brought them to her to be injected.  (I observed this in 
action.)  She went to a drawer in a dusty table and got out a beat-up 
syringe, rinsed it off with unboiled river water (that everybody in the area 
was accustomed to drink, and that the cattle were also accustomed to wading 
in).  She filled the syringe and injected whomever needed the injection.

I don't know if similar practices had been followed in Haiti or not, but it 
wouldn't surprise me.

Nancy Laleau

P.S.   While I drank the unboiled river water like everybody else, when I got 
an infected mosquito bite on my foot, I went into town and got a doctor to 
treat it!