Bermuda must openly discuss HIV and AIDS in order to address the illness' true impact on the community, Allan Vincent Smith Foundation chairman Michael Fox has claimed.

Discrimination against those living with HIV/AIDS is rampant, he said, but the stigma attached to the illness is so severe, individuals are often too afraid to report problems - even when they are unfairly dismissed from their jobs.

Mr. Fox hopes that the creation of a new National AIDS Committee, which Health Minister Nelson Bascome announced on World AIDS Day last month, will go along way to opening up discussion and addressing some of fear and stigma common in the community.

He would like to see HIV/AIDS discussion become commonplace in the community and that was one reason the AVSF elected not to have any activities marking World AIDS Day this year.

"This is not something that we can focus on one day a year," Mr. Fox said. "People living with HIV/AIDS cannot focus on it one day a year. We have to think about it 365 days a year."

The illness is affecting scores of Bermudian families, he added.

"There are families that have lost more than one relative," Mr. Fox said. "Sometimes they will lose a brother and an uncle and a grandparent."

But the true impact on society will not be known until people are willing to talk openly about the illness, Mr. Fox claimed.

"I think people are still afraid of the issue," Mr. Fox said. "They just don't want to talk about it. There is still so much fear and ignorance but we don't have the option of ignoring it with the number of infections we've had here."

Since the Health Department began collecting statistics on HIV/AIDS in 1982, there have been 475 reported cases in Bermuda and 375 of those infected individuals have died.

But there is much reason suspect numbers go under-reported due to the high degree of stigma and misunderstanding surrounding infection.

And although Bermuda has a strong system in place to provide treatment to those living with the illness - making the Island unique in the Caribbean region - many infected individuals do not seek treatment out of fear it will lead to their identification, Mr. Fox said.

He is hoping to implement community awareness techniques that he picked up over the last four years, while serving as head of the Caribbean Region Network (CRN Plus), in Bermuda to begin to face the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Last month, Mr. Fox participated in the first national HIV/AIDS awareness day in Belize where an independently organised youth march took place as well as a day long fair promoting community awareness.

The Caribbean region - which includes Bermuda - is the second fasted growing regions in terms of numbers of HIV/AID infections after Sub-Saharan African.

"Because of that, the Caribbean is starting to get a lot of attention," Mr. Fox said. "But stigma is still a very big problem in the Caribbean as well."

The Pan Caribbean Partnership is currently seeking a multi-millionaire dollar grant from the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) to unify the approach taken to the illness in Caribbean countries.

For most Caribbean countries, Mr. Fox explained, the biggest battle has been access to treatments as they have far less resources than Bermuda.

But in terms of education programmes and promoting community awareness, Bermuda can expect to see big things happening over the next year, he added.