PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - The Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) announced a US$7 million (euro5.86 million) grant to help Caribbean countries fight HIV/AIDS over the next year. The funds will pay for public education programmes, monitoring of disease patterns and laboratory testing facilities in 21 Caribbean countries and territories, said Jones P Madeira, spokesperson for the PAHO-administered Caribbean Epidemiology Centre. Countries with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence will receive the most money, Madeira said. Those include Guyana, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Belize and the Bahamas. Haiti, the Caribbean country with the highest number of AIDS cases, already receives funds through a separate PAHO programme. An estimated one in 50 people in the Caribbean are infected with HIV, giving the region the highest infection rate after sub-Saharan Africa, according to Washington-based PAHO. Among the agencies contributing to the grant were the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Britain's Department for International Development and the Canadian International Development Agency. Reprinted from jamaicaobserver.com