PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 10 (UPI) -- The results of Haiti's first census in 24 years reveal high unemployment and poor medical care in the Caribbean nation, said the United Nations Wednesday.
Half of Haiti's population is under 20 years old, the unemployment rate is 33 percent and nearly half of the country's children are not enrolled in school, according to the census results of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Haiti, which is slightly smaller than Maryland, has a population of 8.4 million people and is estimated to grow 2.5 percent yearly. It is forecasted that 10 million people will inhabit the country by 2010.
"The census offers a map of where the direst needs are in Haiti," said Hernando Clavijo, Haiti's representative for the U.N. Population Fund in the capital, Port-au-Prince. "The population structure in itself, with an overwhelming majority of young people, means that more resources should be put into education and reproductive health services."
The health care situation is equally bleak. Haiti has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate and highest maternal death rate in the Western Hemisphere. Some 4 to 5 percent of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS and there are 523 deaths per 100,000 live births, said a related study provided by UNFPA.
The $8 million census, the fourth in Haiti's history, was conducted by Haiti's Ministry of Finance and the Statistics and Informatics Institute with money provided by the Belgian, Haitian and Japanese governments, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank and UNFPA.
