| Author (Person) | Cronin, David |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.10, No.42, 2.12.04 |
| Publication Date | 02/12/2004 |
| Content Type | News |
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Date: 02/12/04 By David Cronin THE UN's latest AIDS Epidemic Update makes grim reading. Almost 40 million people are infected with the HIV virus across the globe, the report states. AIDS claims more than three million lives per year. Women are bearing the brunt of the disease, it adds, accounting for 57% of all infections in sub-Saharan Africa. The proportion of female victims is especially acute among young people in that region, where women and girls account for 76% of infections in the 15-24 age bracket. For some years both the means of preventing and treating AIDS have been known. Yet the resources and information about how to implement them are missing. Nine-out-of-ten AIDS victims needing treatment with anti-retroviral drugs in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to them. Less than one-in-ten pregnant women is offered services aimed at stopping the transmission of HIV to their babies. Two-thirds of young women surveyed in Cameroon, Lesotho, Mali, Senegal and Vietnam did not know the three methods of preventing AIDS: avoiding penetrative sex, using condoms or having intercourse with only one uninfected and faithful partner. Often, such ignorance is coupled with cultural taboos. In Zambia, for example, a survey found that just 11% of married women felt they had the right to insist that their husband used a condom, even if he had been diagnosed as HIV-positive. The UK is promising to make AIDS a key foreign policy objective during its presidencies of both the EU and the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries next year. According to Hilary Benn, secretary of state for international development, 2005 will be “a year of unique opportunity”. Among the events which his country will be hosting will be a 'replenishment' conference for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Marta Monteso Cullell, of the Stop AIDS Alliance, says that the UK should demand that the EU commits itself to ensuring universal access to anti-retroviral treatment, a proven lifeline to many victims of the disease. Sources in the European Commission say that there is unease among many development officials that greater attention is not being paid to the disease. Some in its directorate-general for development were perturbed that a recent paper on AIDS, TB and malaria, endorsed by the Commission, did not give any firm undertakings to increase the EU's budget for fighting the three major killers. Much of the focus in the coming years is likely to be on developing an AIDS vaccine, as well as providing microbicides, such as vaginal creams or gels, to women, so that they will not have to rely on their sexual partners using condoms. But Florence Manguyu, of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative in Kenya, says: “We know from previous experience that an epidemic of this kind will only be controlled by the use of a vaccine. But it will be useless to find vaccines if nobody has access to them and nobody can afford them.” The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) published its 2004 epidemic update in which it reports on the latest developments in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, 23 November 2004. |
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Subject Categories | Health |
| Countries / Regions | Europe |
