- (AFP) -- As South Africa defended its policy of denying
AIDS drugs to its population at a conference on the disease in Durban,
the head of the UN's World Health Organization said the government's strategy
was wrong.
-
- In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, Lee Jong-wook also
compared the worldwide AIDS crisis to "Armageddon", and said
a massive increase in efforts to combat it was required, especially for
Africa.
-
- "In the African continent it would be wrong to talk
about prevention, voluntarily counseling and testing, when people are actually
dying. You have to provide treatment as well as prevention," said
Lee, who took over as head of the Geneva-based agency last month.
-
- South Africa has one of the highest AIDS rates in the
world, with the UNAIDS agency estimating 360,000 deaths in 2001 -- an average
of nearly 1,000 per day.
-
- The government has come under heavy criticism for failing
to adopt a national treatment plan for HIV/AIDS sufferers, choosing instead
to focus on "nutritious diets" as a way to fight the disease
for those infected.
-
- But Lee said this was inadequate to deal with an epidemic
he decribed as "a global security issue."
-
- "It's almost like Armageddon, equivalent to something
realy big hitting the planet," Lee told AFP on the sidelines of an
international anti-tobacco conference in Helsinki.
-
- He pledged that the WHO would step up its battle against
HIV and AIDS, mobilizing all available resources.
-
- Nearly 50 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide,
with 27 million carriers of the virus on the African continent alone, he
said.
-
- "They are staggering numbers. We have to scale up
the disease control in a major, major way," he said.
-
- The average life expectancy in many African countries
has declined to 45 or 46 years, and for the first time global population
growth has been stopped because of the epidemic, he said.
-
- "Losing this battle is not an option," Lee
said.
-
- Yet he said HIV/AIDS was, wrongly, no longer treated
a major international issue, despite the death toll in the developing world
still being in the millions.
-
- "It's difficult because nowadays, we don't talk
about AIDS in Europe and North America, because as long as you take medicine
you can stay alive and lead almost a normal life," he noted.
-
- But the availability of drugs was a huge problem in poorer
countries.
-
- "We have to make drugs, real drugs, available to
people in the needy countries," he said.
-
- In this, it was necessary to cooperate with the big pharmaceutical
companies, and avoid hurting their interests because any reluctance to
develop new drugs would damage the fight in the long-term, he said.
-
- "We have to count on the research-based pharmaceutical
industry to develop new anti-retroviral drugs. So we have to really encourage
them to continuously develop new medicines, and at the same time vaccines."
-
- "In Europe you really have to emphasize on prevention,
because those who need treatment are getting their medicines. So here you
really have to talk about prevention to the young population."
-
- While the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was
now under control, Lee cautioned any premature conclusion that the fight
against the virus had been won.
-
- We "have to be prepared if it comes back",
he said.
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