Haitian Immigrants (Hansard, 8 April 2003)

§ Dr. Tonge
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what financial resources her Department has allocated to illegal Haitian immigrants with HIV/AIDS; [107278]
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(2) what financial resources her Department has allocated to Haitian refugees in the Turks and Caicos Islands for each year since 1997. [107286]

§ Clare Short
According to the Governor's Office in Turks and Caicos Islands, there currently are only two registered refugees in the islands, neither of whom is Haitian. My Department has allocated no financial resources for Haitian refugees in the Islands since 1997.
Our development assistance is not allocated by specific population groups within the Turks and Caicos Islands. In consultation with the Islands" authorities, we are developing a programme of support to improve the quality and equity of access to health care for all. The Islands" Government already has an established National AIDS Control Programme, which is addressing the HIV/AIDS problem. This includes ongoing education and information work, which takes account of language differences, to ensure that key messages about HIV/AIDS risks reach the whole population. The Turks and Caicos Islands also benefit from our support to the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre for HIV/AIDS prevention, to which we have allocated £1.7 million for the period 2002 to 2005.

§ Dr. Tonge
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what estimate her Department has made of the number of Haitian immigrants in the Turks and Caicos Islands who have HIV/AIDS. [107282]

§ Clare Short
There is no segregation of numbers of Haitian immigrants within the Turks and Caicos Islands population for the purposes of the national HIV/AIDS surveillance system. According to the data from the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, the HIV prevalence in the Turks and Caicos Islands population as a whole was estimated in 2001 to be 5 per cent., as compared to the Caribbean average of 2 per cent. The estimated number of people infected with HIV/AIDS in the Turks and Caicos Islands by the end of 2001 was 972, comprising nine children, 459 women and 504 men.