The Costa Rican government on Tuesday signed an agreement with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to implement a joint program to prevent HIV-AIDS, Xinhua reported.
The program will focus on youngsters living in Puntarenas and Limon, two main coastal cities of Costa Rica. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias attended the signing ceremony. A study on youngsters in the two cities regarding HIV-AIDS was released during the event.
The study, which was based on a sample of 800 teenagers between 13 and 18 years old from both cities, showed that there is a formidable lack of knowledge about methods to prevent HIV-AIDS among the young in the region.
In Limon, 52.5 percent of the youngsters correctly identified ways the disease can be transmitted, and in Puntarenas only 43.3 percent could do so.
Only 26.5 percent of the teenagers in Limon and 34.5 percent in Puntarenas knew of methods to prevent HIV-AIDS, while the UN goal for 2010 is no less than 90 percent.
The study also showed lack of a favorable attitude in the use of condoms as a preventive method, as only 27.7 percent of teenagers in Limon and 18.9 percent in Puntarenas, use condoms in their sexual relations.
According to the poll, 51.6 percent of the youngsters in Puntarenas and 59 percent in Limon have had sexual intercourse before the age of 16, while 24.6 percent in Puntarenas and 6.8 percent in Limon began their sexual activity at the age of 13.
The results are alarming, as a high incidence of occasional sexual relations was detected, coordinator of the poll, Marco Fournier, told Xinhua.
"The problem is not the frequency the youngsters have sexual relations, but the conditions in which they have them: with little knowledge, without condoms, one-off relations, and with people older than they are. And we are worried that 14 percent in Puntarenas said they even had sexual relations against their will," Fournier said.
He said they collected samples in Limon and Puntarenas because these two cities have long been suffering from serious social problems.
"The results are worrying. There is a very low knowledge level and the teenagers barely have 40 percent of the information they need," Fournier said.
He said the results of the poll showed the necessity of a radical change in sex education in Costa Rica, a project that has stagnated for many years.