- UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
- Organisers of a special UN conference on AIDS appealed to the world Monday
to understand that the disease is a fast-spreading threat to the security
of entire countries that demands global action.
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- "This is no longer just a health problem, it is
a development catastrophe," said Penny Wensley, Australia's ambassador
to the United Nations. Wensley is co-facilitator of a conference for heads
of state and government being organized as a special session of the UN
General Assembly from June 25 to 27.
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- "It is a problem that is raising profound risks
to security and development, not just of individuals, not just of communities,
but of entire countries," she told a news conference.
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- Government delegates gathered at UN headquarters on Monday
for a week of negotiations to complete the final declaration which participants
are due to adopt at the end of the summit, the first the General Assembly
has held on a health issue.
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- "The reason we're having a special session is because
this pandemic is spreading, and spreading rapidly, which is why we have
to focus as much on prevention as we do on treatment and care for those
affected," Wensley said.
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- "The most affected areas are Africa and the Caribbean,
but please, look at the figures for central and eastern Europe, look at
the figures in the Pacific, in India, in China and other parts of the world,"
she went on.
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- "This is a global problem that needs global action
and a global response."
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- Figures from the joint UN programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
showed that at the end of last year, the 36.1 million adults and children
living with the disease or the virus that causes it included 25.3 million
in sub-Saharan Africa.
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- The proportion of infected adults aged 15 to 49 is highest
in Africapercent) and the Caribbean (2.3 percent), but UNAIDS warned of
"exponential growth" masked by under-reporting in Russia.
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- And it said China was experiencing a steep increase in
sexually transmitted infections which could mean a higher spread of HIV/AIDS,
spurred on by a "population movement that dwarfs any other in recorded
history".
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- But, Wensley said, it was important to stress that the
epidemic could be contained.
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- Australia and Senegal -- whose ambassador to the UN,
Ibra Deguene Ka, is the other co-facilitator of the summit -- had "succeeded
through national strategies in reducing the level of incidence," Wensley
said.
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- "We know it can be done, but it cannot be done unless
there is a massive infusion of resources and a mobilisation of political
will and of the economic and financial muscle that is needed to address
the problem," she added.
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- Ka said that "resources will be the key issue"
at the summit, which would hold four round-tables for "inter-active
debate, so leaders will be able to say what is in their heart and what
they expect from the international community."
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- The round-table formula was used at last September's
UN millennium summit, where world leaders set themselves the target of
halting the spread of HIV infection and beginning to reverse it by 2015.
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- Wensley said this remained the overall target, but the
final declaration was likely to include other interim goals.
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- A draft document made available at the news conference
would, if adopted, set one target of reducing HIV prevalence among young
adults aged 15 to 24 in the most affected countries by 25 percent by 2005,
and worldwide by 2010.
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- It would also reduce the number of HIV-infected infants
by 20 percent by 2005 and by 50 percent five years later.
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