AIDS and $$ in SPS

The exchange rate is 20Lps to 1$. 700Lps is around 35$. Just over one dollar per day.

On the Honduran North Coast, a man with a good paying job like packing bananas for Dole earns Lps. 700 a month. Food for a family of five costs Lps. 63 a day, according to official government reports.

For the entire Honduran prison system, the total budget for medicines is Lps. 100,000 a year, even though dozens of prisoners are HIV positive. Obviously, with budgets like these, there is no room to buy drugs to fight AIDS. The new "triple cocktail", which reduces HIV blood levels to almost zero, currently costs $1 million a year. This is out of reach for 96 percent of the world’s AIDS sufferers...

...Garifuna communities in Honduras have been particularly hard hit by AIDS. In Santa Fe, there are 25 known cases of AIDS, most in their terminal stage. It is believed, says Tifre, that the rate of reported to unreported cases in Honduras is 1 to 30. There are only 5,000 people in the Santa Fe area, giving an HIV infection rate of almost 20 percent. This is not unrealistic. In San Pedro Sula in some industries, like seamstresses, watchmen, and food processors/sellers, the AIDS infection rate is 30 percent.

http://www.marrder.com/htw/jul97/editorial.htm