When AIDS hit, Fidel handled it the way the people in the US said it should have been handled, as an epidemic and to isolate people who might spread the disease. Cuba had a low rate if AIDS during the 1980s. The problem was the isolation slowed down the spread of the disease but did not stop the spread.
http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/2009/02/success-story-of-hiv-and-aids-control-in-cuba
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/health/cubas-aids-sanitariums-fortresses-against-a-viral-foe.html
In the early 1990s the Doctor in charge of containing AIDS decided that the complete quarantine system was not only NOT needed, but in some ways defeating his efforts to isolate AIDS in Cuba (for many people with AIDS refused to get tested do to fears of being quarantined). Thus the doctor asked and finally received permission to leave most people with AIDS out of quarantine and into the general public. That has been the general rule in Cuba since about 1995, if a person with AIDS takes the effort to make sure he or she does NOT spread the disease, he or she is permitted to live anywhere in Cuba. If he or she spreads the disease that is a different story. Castro, as suggested by the Doctor in charge, also made it the rule that the State will ASSUME people with the disease are NOT spreading it. i.e. they have to have evidence of someone spreading the disease, not that if someone is a homosexual.
The Cuban method of complete quarantine till Cuba knew more about how the disease was spread, and then relax restrictions on people with AIDS once how it spread was understood is the classic method of handling a new disease. This two step process used by Cuba has given Cuba a handle on how to handle AIDS. This had given Cuba one of the lowest rate of AIDS in the world. You may dislike the concept of quarantine, but it was suggested in the US when AIDS first hit, for that is how the US and every other nation, handles new diseases that hits the US or those nations. Now, sometimes the disease spread to fast for a quarantine to be imposed (Colds and Flus spread to fast for such treatment), but other diseases, including other Venereal diseases where handled this way. In most cases that kept the disease isolated and out of mainstream America. In the case of AIDS, the efforts in this direction to contain the spread of AIDS found massive resistance in the Homosexual Community which had been one of the first segments of the American Population hit by AIDS. In face of that opposition the Federal Government back down. I blame Reagan for this. He had known Homosexuals in his days in Hollywood and good relations with them. Instead of saying, we have to treat AIDS as a INFECTIOUS DISEASE, he accepted the argument it was a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE and in my opinion left it go. That was the time Containment was called for, the Center for Infectious disease even had a map of where AIDS was spreading (and the seven Cities where the person who is believed to have brought AIDS into the US had flown during a trip he made as a Seward on a Plane).
It took years for San Francisco to close down its bath houses, long after it had been shown that AIDS was being spread is such locations. In many ways to it was to little to late. Congress even decided to get into the act of Containment, to little, to late and in the wrong way. In 1993 Congress decided to ban anyone who said they had AIDS into the US. Yes, in the early 1990s, Cuba decided to relax containment of people with AIDS for Containment side affect, fear of containment was leading to increase spread of AIDS. Most infections are done by men who do NOT know they have AIDS, so Congress decided to ban Men who KNEW they had AIDS (For Containment to work, it must be effective as to stopping the spread of any disease, what Congress did in 1993 had no affect on the spread of AIDS in the US and thus ineffective Containment). I will NOT go into the mind set of Congress, a Congress that did not want to spend money tracking down people who did not know they had AIDS, but were willing to pass a law that punished people who KNEW they had AIDS and were self contained do to that Knowledge.
When you have a new infectious disease you track it down and do your best to isolate it. You do what is needed to contain its spread. Reagan failed to do that. Reagan's second problem was when AIDS entered the intravenous drug sub-culture, he refused to handle it as experts told him to do so, i.e. the spread was do to sharing needles, stop the sharing of needles by providing free and clean needles. Congress's actions in 1993 in regards to people with AIDS made no sense, for these men were NOT coming to the US to spread AIDS.
Containment (Quarantine) can prevent the spread of a disease, if the containment plan is carefully drawn to make sure that is all that it is doing. At the start of any new infections, containment will be broader then may latter to found to be needed. That is NOT a fault of the concept of Containment but an inherent problem one has to face when Containment is called for in face of an unknown infectious disease. Containment to be effective has to be what is minimally required. In the Case of AIDS, the speed of its spread was unknown in the 1980s, as we learned more of the disease, we determined less containment was needed (and in many ways less containment can lead to reduce spreading of the disease, as was the case in Cuba since the mid 1990s).
I hate to say this, how Castro handle AIDS was probably the best overall method. Containment, then when it was found complete containment was NOT needed, reduced containment, to the almost no containment Cuba had today. At the same time go after people who are spreading the disease and get them to stop spreading AIDS, either by educating them and if that fails Quarantining them.
Side note: AIDS is a VIRAL INFECTION, we have NEVER found a cure for a Viral infection. The closest thing to a "Cure" for a Virus is how we deal with Rabies. If someone is bitten by an animal with Rabies, we shoot that person up with weaken Rabies virus as a vaccine, hoping his body will develop anti-bodies to Rabies by the time the rabies actual appear. This is extremely effective if the Vaccine is given soon after the person is bitten. If Rabies does appear in a Human, he or she has a 99% chance of dieing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies
Now, Viruses can be prevented by being given a Vaccine. The vaccine is either a dead or weaken form of the Virus. Some AIDS research is directed at such a Vaccine. We have research going back to Reagan on Treatments for AIDS (And a massive amount of Research from the British effort from 1945 till the early 1990s to find a cure for the common cold, it is a huge amount of data on viruses and how their spread). The problem is AIDS has a constantly changing outer coat. As the body detects one form of the coat and starts to defeat AIDS, other coats become dominate and spread. The body beats back each new coat over and over again, but sooner or later the body fails to produce the antibodies and the AIDS spreads and kills. Various treatments have been introduced to help the body handle the AIDS Virus, but that is all that these treatment do (one for example interferes with how AIDS attached itself to DNA to replicate itself, which is how all viruses make new viruses). These have spread out the life expectancy of people with AIDS (and in at least one case, the body was able to cure itself with the assistance of these treatments) but these are NOT cures, just treatments (and the classic way to handle a virus is to handle the syndromes and leave the body cure itself, so this may be a way to cure people of AIDS).
All of the above helps us deal with AIDS, but in the mean time the best way to handle it is to prevent its spread. Cuba's present policy seems to be working. Test for AIDS, but no imprisonment, but hospitalization is available. If someone is spreading the disease, track him or her down and isolate him or her. If it is do to lack of knowledge (i.e. did not know they had AIDS) then education may be all that is needed, but if it is because they do NOT care about others, then isolation is called for. Similar policies should be done in the US (and are to a limited degree). Handing out clean needles, even when such acts were illegal, seems to have dropped the rate of drug spread AIDS.
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