PRESS CONFERENCE BY JOINT UN PROGRAMME ON HIV/AIDS

 

On the eve of the High-Level Meeting on AIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) released its most comprehensive report to date on the state of the global AIDS epidemic and the responses to it.  In releasing the report, which included data from 126 countries and more than 30 independent civil societies, the heads of several United Nations agencies expressed cautious optimism about the results achieved in the past five years, but also sounded alarms about the fact that more women were becoming infected and large numbers of children continued to suffer the effects of HIV/AIDS.

“2005 was probably the least bad year in the 25-year history of AIDS”, said Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS.  He said the number of infections worldwide had decreased, with several countries, including many in East Africa, reporting significant progress, especially among young people.

He noted that there was also much more in the way of resources available to fight the disease.  At a special session of the General Assembly in 2001, countries had committed to spend between $7 billion and $10 billion annually on fighting AIDS by 2005.  That goal was reached, with $8.3 billion in funds available last year.

Still, 39 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2005.  Each day, there were 8,000 deaths and 11,000 new infections, and in some areas, particularly southern Africa, the disease continued to spread rapidly.

Proportionally, more women, especially young women, were becoming infected.   Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), noted that in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly three of four young people living with HIV were female.  She said women were disproportionately vulnerable, and greater efforts were needed to give them ways to protect themselves.

“Prevention remains our first and most effective line of defence”, she said.  “Indeed, prevention is life.” 

She said prevention measures should include abstinence or delaying the age of sexual activity, ensuring marital fidelity or reducing the number of partners, condom programmes, and voluntary testing and counselling, among other things.

She also highlighted the lack of agreement among UNAIDS co-sponsors on a comprehensive prevention strategy in the controversial area of sex workers.  She said many poor women were deprived of their rights to education, health and income, and poverty and violence often drove them into the sex trade.  Providing support to give them other work options should be seen a basic human right, she said.

The disease also continued to have a profound effect on millions of young people.  “Children are still infected and dying from AIDS in unacceptable numbers”, said Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).  She noted that there were 1,500 new HIV infections a day among people under the age of 15.  An estimated 15 million children had lost one or both parents to the disease, she added, and millions more were caring for parents while they slowly died from AIDS.

She said children were too often overlooked when it came to formulating prevention and treatment strategies.  Only one in 20 children who needed HIV treatment was receiving it, with the result that up to 50 per cent of HIV-infected children died by their second birthday.  Additionally, even though 90 per cent of HIV infections in people under the age of 15 had resulted from mother-to-child transmission, less than 10 per cent of HIV-infected pregnant women had received drug therapies to prevent such transmission.

“Our collective goal must be an AIDS-free generation, and this demands that we put children at the centre of the global response”, she said.  That response should include prevention programmes, a continuation of public-private partnerships to promote the affordability of new paediatric drugs, scaling up services to prevent mother-to-child transmission, and providing protection and support for orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS.

“We are making progress, but unfortunately I cannot tell you that we are on the way to reversing this epidemic”, said Dr. Piot.  “The truth is we’re still running behind.  The crisis continues, and that’s why we need this high-level meeting this week.”

Asked what concrete results he expected from the meeting, Dr. Piot said he hoped for new commitments for long-term funding and long-term engagement.  He said it was important to move from looking at AIDS one fiscal year at a time to providing a commitment over decades.  He also noted that the 2001 special session had resulted in a dramatic spike in funding for fighting HIV/AIDS in the developing world.

When asked why the HIV/AIDS problem continued to be so acute in southern Africa, Dr. Piot cited a number of factors, including the legacy of apartheid, which had broken up families, mixed messages from the society and the Government, gender inequality and sexual violence.

“This is a very complex issue, and it illustrates that it is not enough to do a few interventions, to throw condoms at a population, to come up with billboards to say ‘AIDS kills’”, he said.  “It requires a fundamental change in culture, environment and values in a society.”

In a further question on the issue of underreporting among Asian countries, specifically in the Middle East, Dr. Piot admitted that there were large gaps and said he hoped to see improvement.  While the rate of HIV infection in the region currently remained low, he said that, because of migration and the large population of young people, a rise in infection rates could definitely be expected.

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For information media • not an official record