PRESS BRIEFING BY WHO, UNAIDS, GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS

PRESS BRIEFING BY WHO, UNAIDS, GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS

The failure to deliver AIDS treatment to those in need had become a global health emergency that would be met with a comprehensive “three-by-five” initiative to mobilize and build on existing resources for treating 3 million HIV-infected persons by the year 2005 instead of the 2 million reachable by the present approach, Jong Wook Lee, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said at Headquarters this afternoon.

Briefing correspondents with Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, he said the plan would be ready by 1 December, World AIDS Day.  The WHO, UNAIDS and the Global Fund would lead other partners in the “ambitious” three-by-five initiative effort, he said, adding that WHO’s experience with the SARS epidemic had shown the value of concerted action.

Noting that fewer than 300,000 of the 6 million infected people in developing countries received treatment with antiretroviral drugs, he said the three-by-five initiative would address the speedy delivery of HIV/AIDS treatments to those who needed them.  Emergency response teams of AIDS experts would work directly with governments in countries with the highest HIV/AIDS burden for the delivery of antiretroviral drugs.

Regarding the role of UNAIDS, Dr. Piot recalled the debate that had raged at the time of the 2001 special session on AIDS on whether access should be part of the world response to HIV/AIDS.  “That debate has been won and a new phase is beginning”, he said.  The world had learned there was no chance of beating the disease until access to treatment was provided.  The question now was how to solve the response bottleneck, he said, adding that the comprehensive attack envisaged by three-by-five was the answer.

Dr. Feachem said that a full-scale attack under the three-by-five initiative would run parallel to a preventive programme.  It would work directly with governments, focusing on mobilizing and financing across all sectors to achieve rapid results.  Financing would come primarily from three sources -- the Global Fund, the World Bank and the Bush initiative put forward by the President of the United States to target the 14 countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

Responding to a correspondent’s question, Dr. Lee said that with the HIV/AIDS emergency having reached a point beyond the ability of national governments to control its spread, the three-by-five initiative provided a total package of tools to fight the disease in all its aspects, from testing to the establishment of programmes targeting mother-to-child transmission.

In response to another question, he said that WHO’s response to SARS, and its experience with global conflict situations, had demonstrated that a sense of urgency had to be injected into crises to bring about action.  The novel aspect of the three-by-five programme was the level of concerted attention it brought to the HIV/AIDS emergency, which for many years had been inadequately addressed.

Asked whether the United States had made an explicit commitment to the initiative, and how power would be shared by all the actors, Dr. Feachem said trilateral discussions were under way to make sure actions were complementary in areas where any of the players was already operating.  For example, the Global Fund was active in more than 90 countries and would expand its presence.

Dr. Lee, asked about the large number of actors involved and how resources would be mobilized and organized, recalled the successful international polio eradication drive, saying that the HIV-AIDS pandemic could be seriously impacted in two years.

“It’s important to remember we’re not starting from scratch”, Dr. Piot added.  The momentum behind the three-by-five initiative was to optimize existing avenues, to rationalize them and to build on investments already made.

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