United Nations calls on World Leaders to take more action to confront the global AIDS pandemic by UN News / ABC News 4:41pm 8th Jul, 2004   July 12, 2004 (ABC News)    "UN pleads for action on AIDS", by Peter Lloyd in Bangkok    United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has issued a plea to world leaders to take more action to confront the global AIDS pandemic.Mr Annan, opening the UN's world AIDS conference in Bangkok, warned of dire economic consequences in the Asia-Pacific region unless leaders act decisively to tackle HIV-AIDS.Mr Annan says the region is at a turning point. "We need leaders everywhere to demonstrate that speaking up about AIDS is a point of pride, not a source of shame," he said."There must be no more sticking heads in the sand, no more embarrassment, no more hiding behind the veil of apathy."    "Your leadership must then translate into adequate resources from national budgets."    Experts have warned that unless Asia Pacific leaders act decisively against the disease, it could lead to a pandemic that would surpass the scale already seen in sub-Saharan Africa. Mr Annan says HIV/AIDS is spreading fast in a region home to 60 per cent of the world's population and where one in four new infections occurs.He says the global fight against AIDS is falling short and women are increasingly bearing the brunt of the killer disease. The UN chief made a passionate plea for the education of girls as a vital means of protecting them from the epidemic in a world where more and more women are catching it from philandering husbands.    He also pleaded for more money to halt the spread of a disease that has killed 20 million people and to treat millions of sufferers."We are not on track to begin reducing the scale and impact of the epidemic by 2005, as we had promised," Mr Annan said, referring to the World Health Organisation's plan to treat 3 million people by the end of 2005.    He was concerned in particular about women, who account for nearly half of all adult infections in a world where many live in ignorance and are controlled by men."Over the past few years, we have seen a terrifying pattern emerge: all over the world, women are increasingly bearing the brunt of the epidemic," Mr Annan said. "What is needed is real, positive change that will give more power and confidence to women and girls," he said. "In other words, what is needed is the education of girls."    Men had to change their attitudes, he says, "such as the belief that men who don't show their wives 'who's the boss at home' are not real men; or that coming into manhood means having your sexual initiation with a sex worker when you are 13 years old"..    Just before Mr Annan spoke, 1,000 activists staged a sit-down protest outside the venue on the outskirts of Bangkok, waving placards saying "Access for All Denied", a response to the meeting's "Access for All" slogan. Inside the teeming convention halls, students dressed in giant pink condom suits mingled with delegates. Outside, visitors were entertained by elephants playing soccer in a carpark.    The Bangkok meeting aims to boost access to drug cocktails which can prolong the lives of AIDS sufferers. Despite a dramatic fall in drug prices, mainly due to pressure on Western drug firms, only 440,000 of the 6 million AIDS patients in poorer countries get treatment.    The issue of access to generic anti-retroviral drugs - which can cost as little as $140 per patient a year in poor nations against $470 for branded products, according to charity ActionAid - overshadowed the lead-up to the biennial meeting.    So did accusations of complacency in countries, like host Thailand, which have had considerable success in curbing the spread of AIDS with vigorous action.Thailand's success, particularly in its notorious sex industry in the 1990s, has made it a model. But experts say infections are on the rise among youths and needle drug users, and they blame the Government for cutting spending on AIDS awareness programs and waging a bloody "war on drugs" that has driven many away from treatment.    "AIDS may hit economic development"    AIDS may kill as many as 48 million workers by 2010 and the toll could rise to 74 million by 2015, inflicting a body blow to national economies, the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned. The ILO published the analysis, which is based on access to life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs, on the opening day of the 15th International AIDS Conference, the top forum on the 23-year-old epidemic.    "HIV/AIDS is not only a human crisis, it is a threat to sustainable global, social and economic development," ILO director-general Juan Somavia said. "The loss of life and the debilitating effects of the illness will lead not only to a reduced capacity to sustain production and employment, reduce poverty and promote development but will be a burden borne by all societies, rich and poor alike."    The analysis, HIV/AIDS and Work, Global Estimates, Impact and Response, covers 50 countries.    Forty of them had an estimated prevalence of HIV of more than 2 per cent in 2001; five were between 1.5 and 2 per cent; and five were countries with an HIV-infected population of 1 million or more. Thirty-five were from sub-Saharan Africa, eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, five from Asia, and two from developed countries.    As of today, about 36.5 million people of working age - defined as between 15 and 49 years - have the AIDS virus, the report said. By 2005, the death toll of workers from AIDS since the disease was first uncovered in 1981 will be as many as 28 million, the ILO said. Two million people of working age will be unable to work by next year, compared with half a million in 1995.    By 2010, the historic death toll may be 48 million and it could hit 74 million if efforts fail to speed distribution of antiretrovirals. Four million people of working age will be too sick to work by the end of the decade. That will place an increased economic burden on the other members of the workforce.    Africa, home to two-thirds of the people with HIV or AIDS, will bear the brunt of the loss in production and human capital - but Asia will start to close the gap.    Today, almost 5 million people of working age in Asia have HIV, the ILO said, referring specifically to Cambodia, China, India, Myanmar and Thailand, the five Asian countries included in the study.    By 2010, in the absence of increased access to treatment, almost 10 million Asian workers will have died since 1981, and by 2015, the total figure will top 18 million.    "By causing the illness and death of workers, the HIV/AIDS epidemic reduces the stock of skills and experience of the labour force," said Franklyn Lisk, director of the ILO's AIDS programs. "This loss in human capital is a direct threat to the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development."    The figures contrast with the death toll issued last Tuesday by the UN agency UNAIDS, which revised downwards its previous estimate of 2002 and said "over 20 million" people of all ages had died of AIDS.    The ILO report said AIDS was already being felt in macroeconomic terms. In countries where the impact was measurable, AIDS deaths among the workforce clipped 0.2 per cent off the annual rate of growth of gross domestic product between 1992-2002.This was equivalent to $US25 billion per year.    6 July 2004 (UN News).    "UN agency calls for new approaches to fighting AIDS as infection rate increases".    Despite an increase in funding to fight the worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS, last year's infection rate was the highest ever and radical and innovative approaches must be devised to reverse the expansion of the disease while the epidemic is at a crossroads, a new United Nations report says.    The "2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic" from the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says it is time "to embark boldly upon the 'Next Agenda' - an agenda for future action that adopts the essential, radical and innovative approaches needed for countries to reverse the course of the epidemic."    If the world continues responding to the epidemic in "its well-meaning, but haphazard and ineffectual fashion, then the global epidemic will continue to outpace the response," it says.    In 2003, an estimated 4.8 million people - within a range of 4.2 million to 6.3 million - became newly infected with HIV. "This is more than any one year before," it says.    Some 37.8 million people are now living with AIDS and 20 million have died since the first cases of AIDS were identified in 1981, it says.    The world was spending an estimated $4.7 billion on combating the epidemic in 2003, but that figure was less than half what would be needed by 2005 and only a quarter of what would be needed by 2007 to mount a comprehensive response to AIDS in low- and middle-income countries, the report says.    "An unprecedented level of financial resources is now available to tackle the disease, but it is still half of what is really needed," and the money appropriated is not being used in an effective, coordinated manner, it says.    Efforts to prevent the spread of HIV need to focus on both risky individual behaviour and on broad underlying structural factors in society, it says.    Part of the problem is that, in some instances, AIDS funding is blocked in government bank accounts, or is stalled under rules put in place by international donors, UNAIDS says.    Meanwhile, whereas those affected by the epidemic were once predominantly male, at least half are now women worldwide. Among southern Africans infected women outnumber infected males by as much as two to one in some age groups.    In other ways, women are affected by being the ones burdened with taking care of the sick and are the most likely to have to sacrifice jobs and schooling, a situation which the report highlights by including gender sections in each chapter.    Noting the factors that make women more vulnerable, it says adolescent girls must have access to information and services, violence against women must not be tolerated, women must have property rights and access to prevention options, including an eventual microbicide.    "Addressing vulnerability at the structural level includes reforming discriminatory laws and policies, monitoring practices and providing legal protections for people living with HIV," the UNAIDS report says.    Half of all new HIV infections are now found in the 15- to 24-year-old age group, with more than 6,000 contracting the virus every day, the report says. People in the same age group will be responsible for fighting the epidemic in future, so they should now play an integral part in responding to the epidemic.
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