USVI: HIV/AIDS wrecking Caribbean economies

The HIV-AIDS epidemic raging in the Caribbean is a time bomb with the potential to wreak havoc on economies throughout the region, researchers told those gathered for a weekend HIV-AIDS conference here.

"This is not just a health problem. It is a development problem," Karl Theodore, a professor of economics at the University of the West Indies and coordinator of the Health Economics Unit there, said in an interview with The Daily News. "If HIV is simultaneously weakening the labor force and reducing our savings, it's actually weakening the whole economy."

The university's Health Economics Unit has researched the economic impact of HIV-AIDS on a number of countries throughout the region, including Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, and it is conducting research in others, including the Bahamas and Haiti, Theodore said.