‘FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS REQUIRES CONSTANT VIGILANCE AND RENEWAL’, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL

‘FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS REQUIRES CONSTANT VIGILANCE AND RENEWAL’,

SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL

Following is the text of the video message by Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the fifty-ninth session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Bangkok, 1-4 September:

You meet at a decisive moment in the history of your region, and you have chosen to focus on a vital topic.

In recent decades, more people have escaped from poverty in Asia and the Pacific than in any other part of the world, and more than in any previous time.  You have done more than any other region to make globalization work to your advantage.

These gains have impressed the whole world.  You must cherish, and carefully nurture them.  Above all, you must not let them be reversed by the growing threat of HIV/AIDS.

More than 8 million people in your region are now living with HIV/AIDS, and the number is rising fast.  Some areas have been battling the epidemic for well over a decade.  But it has now reached almost every corner of the region.

Left unchecked, AIDS will not only devastate millions of lives; it will also impose huge burdens on the region’s health systems, and soak up resources that are badly needed for social and economic development. 

So the fight against HIV/AIDS requires constant vigilance and renewal.  We know, from experience elsewhere, that the spread canbe turned back when –- but only when –- there is a coordinated response, from all sectors of society and every branch of Government.  It requires leadership at every level.

As representatives of your region’s Governments, all of you can help make that happen.  It is a vital responsibility.

One of our Millennium Development Goals, agreed by all the world’s Governments, is to halt, and begin to reverse, the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world by the year 2015.  As the world’s largest region -- both in area and in population -- you have a decisive part to play in ensuring that we reach that goal.  There is no time to lose.

I commend you, therefore, for choosing to focus on HIV/AIDS at this session.  It is a terrifying challenge.  But, if you bring all your energy and imagination into play, I have no doubt that you can beat it.