THE Unites States government is organising a one-day meeting on Saturday, April 20 in Georgetown, Guyana, to determine how the United States can better work with Caribbean health ministers on stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region.

Those scheduled to address the Guyana meeting include Secretary of State Colin Powell and other officials from the State Department, along with representatives from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Jamaica will be represented by health minister John Junor, who left the island yesterday to attend the Caribbean Community’s Sixth Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development, also being held in Guyana.

Organisers say Powell may address the meeting via video. The meeting was established, organisers said, when US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson attended a special United Nations session on AIDS with a number of Caribbean leaders and made a commitment to organise such a forum.

At that UN session, Guyana offered to host the meeting. In all, USAID expects to send seven officials to Georgetown, including Anne Peterson, assistant administrator of the Bureau for Public Health; Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator of the Latin America and Caribbean bureau; and Carol Dabbs, team leader for health in that same bureau.

Thompson will deliver opening remarks in Guyana outlining what various US agencies, such as USAID, the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, and the National Institutes of Health, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Health Resources and Services Administration are doing to stem the disease domestically and internationally.

Overall, the Bush Administration proposes to spend more than $16,000 million in fiscal year 2003 to combat HIV/AIDS at home and abroad. The CDC is working with the Pan American Health Organisation’s Caribbean Epidemiology Centre on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in the region. The CDC is also working directly with public health officials from Brazil, Guyana, and Haiti, where more than 750,000 people are estimated to have HIV/AIDS.

The April 20 meeting in Guyana will immediately follow an April 17-19 gathering of the Caricom (Caribbean Community and Common Market) in Georgetown, which serves as headquarters for Caricom. Oganisers decided to hold the HIV/AIDS meeting at the same venues for logistical convenience to the many ministers already in Georgetown for Caricom discussions. While Cuba is eligible to participate in the Caricom event, that country’s leaders will not be invited to the HIV/AIDS meeting, which is being organised by HHS Secretary Thompson. Organisers say misinformation in the media has confused the HIV/AIDS meeting with the Caricom event. The two are separate affairs, organisers said.