Bermuda has the second highest number of AIDS cases per capita after the Bahamas in the Caribbean/Atlantic region where reporting accuracy is now considered high by epidemiologists.

But Bermuda, with the region's only hospice, reformed sex offence laws and a community that is more compassionate towards people with AIDS than many of its neighbours to the south, is considered the best equipped to deal with the disease which is now pandemic.

The information surfaced at a workshop this week on responsible reporting of AIDS sponsored by the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, PANOS, and the Caribbean Institute of Mass Communication.

The 19 islands that report to CAREC are advised to look at Bermuda's Agape House as a "model'' in setting up their own hospice, CAREC spokesman Mr.

Leslie Fitzpatrick said.

Bermuda has also "taken the lead'' in reforming its Criminal Code in relation to sexual offences, making it punishable by law for someone who knows they are HIV positive not to tell a person they are about to have sex with that they have the virus, he said.

And the Island was clearly ahead of Caribbean islands, Jamaica in particular, in showing compassion towards people with AIDS.

Because of the stigma attached to having AIDS in Jamaica -- people with the disease have had their houses burned down -- it was only two weeks ago that for the first time an HIV-positive person publicly identified herself.

A 27-year-old Jamaican woman by the name of Terri Ann, wearing a wig, announced to Jamaicans on live TV that she had acquired AIDS from a past sexual encounter with a man.

But as she told the workshop participants this week, she has not dared to walk down the street in her town since.

Terri Ann also told how she was treated like a "dog'' by medical professionals at Kingston Public Hospital. Nurses, she said, had refused to touch her in the entire week-long stay. And they screamed at her when she kindly offered an unpeeled banana to a patient.

"Many persons with AIDS have experienced hostility, rejection, stigmatisation and condemnation from those who felt unaffected by the disease,'' it was noted by Dr. Brendan Bain, the head of the University of the West Indies AIDS education/treatment team.

"In the Caribbean, these experiences persist in several instances up to the present time.'' This was despite recent positive movement of concerned individuals and the formation of several non-Government AIDS help groups in the Islands, including Jamaica.

Barbados AIDS researcher Dr. Mickey Walrond of Queen Elizabeth Hospital believes curing this "third epidemic'' is critical in the fight against the disease.

He recalled Jonathan Mann, former head of the WHO global AIDS programme, saying health workers were dealing with three epidemics: the silent epidemic of HIV being spread by sex; the epidemic of the illness of AIDS -- still devastatingly incurable; and the difficult social reaction.

"It is this third epidemic, if left unchecked, which will ensure that neither the first nor the second epidemic can be controlled,'' He quoted Dr. Mann saying.

"For in the absences of a cure, it is only by a clear change in societal behaviour that the first epidemics can be controlled.'' It is for this reason that Jamaica's forward thinking chief medical officer is warning that his people cannot afford to be complacent about AIDS despite the relatively low per capita AIDS rate in the country. Surveys indicate awareness of AIDS and how it can be prevented is high among Jamaicans.

"Although the cumulative AIDS case rate for Jamaica is relatively low for the Caribbean, Jamaica is still considered to be a high HIV transmission country,'' Dr. Peter Figueroa said.

"Over 1,200 cases of HIV have been reported in Jamaica as of December 31, 1992. It is now estimated there are several thousand HIV infected person in Jamaica most of who do not know they are infected.'' He conceded: "The evidence is we are not controlling the HIV epidemic and that HIV infection is growing at an alarming rate among certain sectors of the population.'' For example, he noted the rate of HIV infection among STD clinic attenders in Kingston had risen ten-fold in the last four years in more than three percent of all cases.

And in a survey of 40 prostitutes tested in the popular Montego Bay tourist resort, one in four was HIV-positive.

"The gap between knowledge of AIDS and individuals assessing their own personal risk is high,'' Dr. Figueroa concluded.

He believed the "tremendous stigma'' associated with people with AIDS in Jamaica was causing some "some kind of denial among our young people'', 77 percent of whom in a recent survey said they knew what HIV was and how transmission could be prevented.

According to CAREC's latest statistics, after the Bahamas, Bermuda, with 267 cases of AIDS and a population of roughly 60,000 has the highest per capita AIDS rate of all CAREC reporting islands.

The Bahamas reported 1,390 AIDS cases which is 111.2 cases per 100,000 population. Third was Barbados with 418 cases or 33.6 per 100,000 population, followed by Grenada with 30.5 per 100,000 population.

Jamaica was eighth among the nations in per capita AIDS cases with 762 reported cases by the end of March 1994.

Haiti and Cuba, where there are believed to be large numbers of AIDS cases, did not report to CAREC.

"AIDS case definitions are prepared and circulated around the Caribbean islands,'' CAREC clinical psychologist Ms Claudette Francis pointed out.

"Everyone uses the same criteria for reporting AIDS cases. I believe accuracy is high and has certainly improved since (the early days of AIDS in) 1982.'' Ms Francis said Bermuda's high AIDS rate was probably due to the fact all the risk factors for contracting HIV were present locally, especially IV drug use which is practically "unique'' to Bermuda.

Bermuda's close proximity to the United States where HIV infection was high was also a likely factor in the spread of AIDS in the Islands -- it reached US shores before the Caribbean, she said.

Bermuda reported 116 of its AIDS cases got HIV through injecting drugs, compared to just two in the Cayman Islands and two in Trinidad and one in St.

Kitts and one in Guyana.

IV drug use was not a factor in AIDS cases in any of the other islands.

CAREC statistics show that an overwhelming 67 percent of the 5,090 AIDS cases in the Caribbean were a result of heterosexual relations. Homosexual relations accounted for 13 percent of the cases.

In Bermuda the number of people contracting AIDS through heterosexual relations is on the rise, standing at 46, compared to 57 through homosexual relations, 11 through bisexual relations and 116 through IV drug use.