According to UNAIDS, in AIDS Epidemic Update, in 2006 an estimated 1.7 million adults and children in Latin America were living with HIV. Four countries--Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, and Mexico--contained two thirds of those living with HIV in Latin America. An estimated 140,000 adults and children became infected that year and 65,000 died of AIDS-related illnesses. Brazil is home to approximately 620,000 HIV-infected people--one-third of all people living with HIV in Latin America.

Initially, the majority of HIV/AIDS cases in Latin America could be traced to MSM transmission. UNAIDS states that in 2005 unprotected sex between men was responsible for 25% to 35% of reported AIDS cases. However, IDU was contributing almost as much as heterosexual and MSM transmission to the epidemics in many countries. In 2006, 37% of IDUs in southern Brazil were HIV infected. Furthermore, 26% of IDUs reported having unprotected sex with other men. These findings underscore the importance of education and prevention initiatives that emphasize the risks of both unsafe sexual practices and use of nonsterile IDU equipment, especially by programs targeting IDUs.

UNAIDS notes that in Argentina the bulk of the estimated 130,000 people living with AIDS in 2006 were in Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and Santa Fe. In 2005 four out of five new cases of HIV were attributable to sexual transmission, primarily heterosexual. Even though there continue to be more men than women with HIV, by 2005 the male-to-female ratio for new HIV diagnoses was 1.3:1, from 15:1 in 1988. IDU appears to have decreased as a major contributor to Argentina's epidemic--in Buenos Aires IDU was responsible for just 5% of new infections diagnosed between 2003 and 2005.

In 1982 the first suspected AIDS cases in the Caribbean appeared in Jamaica. Since then the epidemic has changed from a mostly homosexual phenomenon to a heterosexual one, with 65% of reported cases resulting from heterosexual transmission, according to UNAIDS, in AIDS Epidemic Update. About one-third of all HIV-infected adults in the Caribbean are women, and the prevalence rate among pregnant women has been rising each year. Unlike in other parts of the world, in the Caribbean the connection between HIV and IDU is low. However, the traditionally common practice of men (and, more recently, women) having multiple sexual partners and the region's flourishing sex industry are fueling the spread of HIV.

According to UNAIDS, in 2006 an estimated 250,000 adults and children in the Caribbean were living with HIV, and 27,000 had contracted the infection during that year. Even though these numbers reflect a decline in the region's epidemic that is at least in part attributable to behavior changes and improved access to antiretroviral drugs, AIDS remains a leading cause of death among people aged fifteen to forty-four in the Caribbean and was responsible for nineteen thousand deaths in 2006.

UNAIDS observes that education and prevention efforts are of paramount importance in terms of controlling the epidemics in this region. Infrequent and inconsistent use of condoms hinders prevention efforts. For example, in 2006 in central Haiti one out of five sexually active young people (aged fourteen to twenty-five) did not even know what condoms were, and about half knew about condoms but did not use them consistently.

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