PRESS BRIEFING BY UNAIDS

Three million people died of AIDS and 5 million became infected with HIV last year, Cate Hankins, Associate Director of Strategic Information for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said at a press briefing this morning, part of the Headquarters observance of World AIDS Day.

Joined by Desmond Johns, Director of the UNAIDS New York Office, she said that despite the fact that 42 million people were currently living with AIDS, there were promising signs that HIV infection rates were decreasing among young women under the age of 20 in certain areas of Africa.  Such decreases among groups that were only just beginning to become sexually active proved that the prevention message was getting through.

Highlighting various regions of the world, she said that the spread of HIV/AIDS because of intravenous drug use was on the rise in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Indonesia, and other societies experiencing economic transition and social upheaval.  Turning to Australia, the United States, and Europe, she said that complacency was becoming a problem.  Specifically, there was a growing belief, especially among young gay men and injecting drug users that because of new medicines, HIV/AIDS was a problem of the past.  With respect to India and China, the epidemic’s prevalence rates were technically below 1 per cent of those countries’ populations.  Because of the large sizes involved, however, that statistic actually represented 4 million Indians and 1 million Chinese.

On a global level, the AIDS epidemic was only in its early phases.  In that context, she called for an increase in resources available for fighting it. 

$3 billion had already been spent in 2002, but what was really needed was a comprehensive prevention and care package valued at $10.5 billion, to be used in low and middle income countries.

Taking the floor, Mr. Johns said that there were critical links between HIV/AIDS and the current famine in sub-Saharan Africa.  Previously, in times of drought, farmers could rely on various coping mechanisms, such as increased labour or cooperation with neighbours.  Now, however, with people dying of AIDS, such solutions were not necessarily viable.

During the planting season, he said, it was typical for women to work

16 hours a day.  As they were increasingly becoming infected with HIV, however, agricultural output was declining.  Additionally, when their husbands and fathers died from AIDS, societal norms, in certain cases, prevented them from obtaining credit and rights to their families’ land.

Asked to elaborate on the links between HIV/AIDS and young girls, he said that a lack of education sustained high infection rates.  Additionally, sexual predation in refugee camps, where young girls were often vulnerable to powerful older men, increased the risks of infection.  Ms. Hankins added that, throughout the world, young girls often coupled with men who were, on average, three years older than themselves.  That age gap sometimes resulted in the girls contracting

HIV from more sexually experienced partners.  Also, the fact that girls’ cervices were not fully developed made them more susceptible to infection.

Fielding a question about the effects of complacency on countries’ willingness to fund the fight against HIV/AIDS, she said that there were governments that had instituted a few needle exchanges and, therefore, felt that they had done enough.  Others seemed to have placed a cap on the money they were disposed to spend on the issue.  That was unfortunate, since combating HIV/AIDS was central to any sustainable development program.  For example, spending money on education was not helpful when the number of teachers was declining because of the epidemic.

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