Tourism and AIDS

Saturday, 2 February 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Could Sri Lanka’s bursting tourism industry increase the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country? There are some disturbing indications that this idyllic island needs to wake up to the hard realities and take measures to safeguard itself from such dangerous possibilities.

Media reports have quoted Deputy Health Minister Lalith Dissanayake giving voice to warnings that with the increase in tourism, Sri Lanka may have to face challenges from the global epidemic. Speaking at an AIDS awareness campaign, he had underscored the importance of educating the public and ensuring that the dreaded condition is kept strictly under control.

According to the National STD/AIDS Control Program statistics, since 1987 there have been 1,597 reported HIV positive cases in Sri Lanka and 8.4% of those have been reported last year alone. Health authorities have so far diagnosed 56 children as being HIV positive.

However, it could be premature to jump to the conclusion that this 8.4% increase is purely due to tourism. Other aspects such as migrant workers could play a role. But what is evident is that there must be a competent and impartial study done to understand the reasons why numbers have recorded such a jump and take steps to protect the population.

Tourism has the potential to exacerbate the HIV-AIDS endemic and further complicate matters for vulnerable people in tourist destinations. At the same time, tourism has the potential to be a vehicle for raising consciousness about the issue of HIV-AIDS as well as forging links of solidarity between people and people, thus contributing to the eventual solutions.

The most immediate medium-term social and economic effect of HIV/AIDS is that it will begin to destroy the tourist industry if a country becomes identified or stigmatised as having high levels of HIV/AIDS. This may discourage visitors even if they are not ‘sex tourists,’ because they will worry about the safety of hospitals, blood supplies, dentists, and emergency medical services.

Beyond this immediate impact, the longer-term impact of infection channelled from the tourist sector into the wider economy and society may be very profound indeed. It may include the loss of highly-skilled specialists, of teachers (and thus the education of the next generation), of careers for the young and old; it may lead to a decline in production in important economic sectors and result in Sri Lanka’s dream of developing dying prematurely.

The link between AIDS and tourism has been seen in many countries around the world, including Kenya, Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Andaman Islands, and of course Thailand. Economically vulnerable groups that are willing to tap into the tourism industry at any cost run the risk of destroying not only their lives but the societies that they are connected to. With the Government targeting 2.5 million arrivals by 2016, the negative effects of tourism also need the same enthusiasm.

In a semi-traditional or transitional society such as Sri Lanka’s, addressing issues such as AIDS is even more complicated due to the sensitive aspects of stigma. Creating a dialogue on AIDS and promoting responsible attitudes need to be expanded to cover emerging situations as well. This is a task that all stakeholders including the private sector need to focus on.

One life lost to AIDS is one too many.