SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN WORLD AIDS DAY MESSAGE, STRESSES NEED FOR PROGRAMMES TO HELP CHILD VICTIMS
Press Release
SG/SM/6400
OBV/21
SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN WORLD AIDS DAY MESSAGE, STRESSES NEED FOR PROGRAMMES TO HELP CHILD VICTIMS
19971119 One Million under Age of 15 Living with HIV; Response So Far 'Inadequate'This is the text of a message by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the occasion of World AIDS Day, Monday, 1 December:
World AIDS Day is both a solemn observance and a call to action.
It is a day on which we remember the millions of individuals -- our friends and family members, public figures and the little-known -- who have died since the epidemic began in the 1970s. It is a day of solidarity with the 30 million people around the world who are living with HIV, the human immuno-deficiency virus that causes AIDS. And it is a day on which we renew our commitment to helping individuals and nations prevent HIV transmission and alleviate the devastating impact of this epidemic.
New therapies and drugs offer hope for fighting and living with HIV and full-scale AIDS. But the costs are often exorbitant, and access to care and support remains all-too-limited, especially in the developing world. This must change, for it is within human capacity and ingenuity to ensure that treatment is available to all.
World AIDS Day this year focuses on the plight of children, for no child is beyond the reach of HIV.
Every day, 1,600 children become infected. By the end of this year, 1 million children under the age of 15 are expected to be living with HIV, more than 95 per cent of them in developing countries. More than 8 million children have lost their mothers to AIDS. Millions more are living with an HIV-positive parent. Even children who are neither infected with HIV nor orphaned by AIDS suffer the social and economic fallout. Most HIV-positive children are infected through mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. But children and adolescents face a range of additional risks: from child abuse; from exploitation in the commercial sex trade; from blood transfusions and intravenous drug use; and from unprotected consensual sex.
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Children with HIV/AIDS and children orphaned by the disease are often stigmatized, and denied services, education and care. Gender discrimination exacerbates the situation of young girls. Poverty fuels the spread of the virus even as it undermines efforts to cope with its repercussions. Children may be vulnerable, but they are neither helpless nor beyond help. Children themselves are effective communicators, not only among their peers but within their families. Indeed, education and information are among our most powerful weapons in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Many communities and nations have been able to stabilize or even reverse their rising infection trends. The UNAIDS programme has supported these efforts. The UNAIDS is a joint venture, pooling the resources of six United Nations organizations with expertise ranging from health care to economic development. Grass-roots organizations are involved. So is the private sector. Such partnerships are vital for an effective, expanded response to a ruinous, expanding epidemic.
AIDS is the most publicized disease in the world. But its impact on children has received an inadequate response, and AIDS programmes for children have lagged behind those for adults. On World AIDS Day 1997, let us resolve to do more. AIDS has changed the world for children. We must now change the world for them.
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