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UN marks World AIDS Day with call to action
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-02 09:40 "Overturning the AIDS pandemic requires having the courage to do what is
known to be effective," it said.
Currently president of the G8 as well as the EU, Britain announced a
27.5-million-pound (40.4-million-euro, 47.5-million-dollar) boost for global
AIDS prevention, with 20 million pounds going to the International AIDS Vaccine
Initiative and the rest going towards the International Partnership of
Microbicides.
In Washington, President George W. Bush said the United States was the
"strongest partner" in fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa, where more than 25 million
people now live with the disease.
Bush, who visited Africa in 2003, has won praise across the political
spectrum for focusing on poverty and AIDS on the continent.
The United States "has a unique ability and special calling to fight this
disease," Bush said at the White House. "We are guided by the conviction of our
founding -- that the Author of Life has endowed every life with matchless
value."
Critics however accuse Bush of putting the profits of giant drugs firms ahead
of saving sick Africans.
Cuban dancers wait to go onstage for an event
marking World AIDS day as a HIV positive patient walks past in an AIDS
sanatorium outside Havana December 1,
2005.[Reuters] | Washington-based advocacy group
Africa Action said the Bush administration "insists on protecting the profits of
the pharmaceutical industry by using only expensive, patented drugs in its
HIV/AIDS programs, instead of lower-cost generic versions that could provide
treatment to three times as many people," said Africa Action Executive Director
Salih Booker.
And Howard Dean, chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, charged that
Bush officials blocked the introduction of generic drugs and failed to fully
fund the president's own initiative.
Around the world the 18th World AIDS Day was marked with special concerts and
the launch in major capitals of new awareness programmes on the HIV virus.
In China, Health Minister Gao Qiang made the government's first official plea
to citizens to get tested for HIV and a prevention program was launched among
the country's millions of migrant workers.
Chinese Health Minister Gao Qiang delivers a
speech during the 'National Migrant Workers HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign'
ceremony to mark World AIDS Day in Beijing December 1, 2005.
[Reuters] | Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for safe sex to be taught to
young people in India, home to more than five million people with the disease.
"You should comprehend the need to educate our young about the modes of
transmission of this disease, and leading a healthy and safe sexual life is one
of the commitments we must all make," Singh said.
In Argentina, the 221-foot (70-metre) obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires was
sheathed in a giant pink condom to raise awareness.
More than 2.1 million people live with HIV-AIDS in Latin America and the
Caribbean, according to Gladys Acosto, director of UNICEF in Guatemala.
Cuba, which has one of the lowest rates of HIV in the region -- 0.07 percent
of the sexually active population -- has waged an aggressive prevention
campaign, including free treatment, local production of anti-retroviral drugs
and education.
The Caribbean generally has the second highest prevalance rate in the world,
with 2.3 percent of the population affected, according to Acosto.
Half of all HIV/AIDS cases are reported in Africa, where outgoing Tanzanian
President Benjamin Mkapa told his nation: "Let us not joke, AIDS is wiping us
out. Day after day, parents bury their children instead of children burying
their parents."
At rallies in Cape Town and Durban, South Africans lamented the stigma that
still surrounds HIV/AIDS, despite the fact their nation has one of the highest
rates of the disease in the world.
"Most people do not have ARVs because they are hiding their status," said
Maureen Mboso, an HIV-positive mother who joined the Cape Town rally.
Although about one in seven South Africans -- 6.5 million people -- are
infected with HIV, only about 80,000 are being treated with the free
anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs that can halt the onset of AIDS.
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