GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AFP): More than 2.1 million people live with HIV-AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean, where Thursday's World Aids Day was marked with increased public warnings to act to stop the spread of the disease. "Just in 2004, some 240,000 people in Latin America and another 53,000 in the Caribbean area were infected with HIV, which means that 33 people are infected every hour with the virus that causes AIDS," said Gladys Acosto, director of UNICEF in Guatemala. In Cuba, health care workers, sports figures and artists took to the streets to hand out AIDS information and free condoms to mark World AIDS day. Cuba, which has one of the lowest rates of HIV in the region -- .07 percent of the sexually active population -- has waged an aggressive prevention campaign, including free treatment, local production of anti-retroviral drugs and education. But the Caribbean generally has the second highest prevalence rate in the world, with 2.3 percent of the population affected, according to Acosto. In hardest-hit, impoverished Haiti, 260,000 people are infected with HIV. UN officials have seen optimistic signs in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, according to the latest UNAIDS report. Fewer pregnant women are infected, more sex workers are using condoms and services such as voluntary testing are increasing. Nevertheless, "it is worrying that the young population is becoming infected at a very accelerated rate," said a 2005 International Labour Organization report on Central America and the Caribbean released. "We are seeing a feminization of the epidemic throughout the region, with a high number of young people among the new infections," it said. A record 40.3 million people live with HIV/AIDS in the world. Reprinted from caribbeannetnews.com