HAVANA, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Senior Cuban health officials said on Tuesday the rate of people being infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS increased last year, although the island still had a low rate of infection.
Deputy health minister Raul Perez Gonzalez and the ministry's director of epidemiology Manuel Santin told a news conference that by the end of 1997, there was an accumulated total of 1,800 people infected with HIV.
There was a rise of about 60 percent compared with the end of 1996 in the number of people diagnosed as infected with HIV, the officials said.
By year end, an accumulated total of 666 people had fallen ill with AIDS, of whom 478 had died, they said.
Communist-ruled Cuba, which registered its first case of the disease in 1986, has a population of 11 million people. The two health officials said its AIDS rate is well below other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
But Santin and Perez said this low rate was itself a problem in that many young people had little awareness of the disease as a threat to them. They said that public information programs had to be stepped up to raise awareness.
"Our population has a low worry rate,'' said Santin.
They also said a growing risk in Cuba is the rise in the number of foreign visitors to the island -- more than 1 million a year -- from countries with a higher rate of AIDS than Cuba. While President Fidel Castro's government has stressed this is not the sort of tourism it wants, some foreign tourists appear to be visiting Cuba in part for sex.
Perhaps mindful of Pope John Paul's Jan. 21-25 visit to the island, Perez stressed Cuban health officials do not advocate solely barrier methods -- condoms -- to prevent AIDS. He said officials believed the best prevention was through stable sexual relationships and responsible sex, although condoms were advisable in cases of casual sex.
The island has kept AIDS in check through a series of measures that have included mass testing, public information campaigns and, up until 1993, isolation in sanatoriums of all people infected with the disease.
The isolation program, which came under criticism in some quarters abroad, has been relaxed in the last four years and about one third of cases are now treated as outpatients. Perez and Santin said it was up to the patient where they were treated.
Cuba has carried out some 20 million AIDS tests since the mid-80s, focusing on pregnant women, people about to undergo surgery and people reporting at clinics with sexually transmitted diseases. REUTERS
18:46 01-06-98