World Aids Day - UN urges world leaders to be accountable for promises made on HIV/AIDS by UN News, UN Aids, BBC, Reuters, Human Rights Watch 8:18pm 1st Dec, 2006   December 1, 2006    Calling the struggle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic "the greatest challenge of our generation," Secretary-General Kofi Annan tonight called on international leaders to make sure they deliver on all the promises that their governments have made.    Mr. Annan said the international community has finally begun to take the fight seriously, devoting greater financial resources and giving more and more people access to antiretroviral treatment.    Yet the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, estimated recently that 39.5 million people around the world live with HIV and another 4.3 million will be infected this year, with nearly two out of every three new infections occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Significant increases in rates of infection have also been reported in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.    At least 25 million have now died from AIDS-related diseases in the 25 years since the first case was reported, and this year alone almost 3 million people will die. The pandemic is the leading cause of death among both men and women aged between 15 and 59.    "Because the response has started to gain real momentum, the stakes are higher now than ever," Mr. Annan said. "We cannot risk letting the advances that have been achieved unravel; we must not jeopardize the heroic efforts of so many," adding that "leaders must hold themselves accountable" and be held accountable by all of us.    He urged the leaders to strengthen protections for all vulnerable groups, whether people living with HIV, young people, sex workers, injecting drug users or men who have sex with men.    The theme for this year"s observation of World AIDS Day is accountability, and the idea that "AIDS stops with me."    The Secretary-General said accountability applies not only to world leaders, but to all of us, from business leaders who can campaign for HIV prevention in the workplace to health workers and faith-based groups who can listen and provide care to sufferers without passing judgement.    It requires fathers, husbands, sons and brothers to support and affirm the rights of women. It requires teachers to nurture the dreams and aspirations of girls. It requires men to help ensure that other men assume their responsibility and understand that real manhood means protecting others from risk.    And it requires every one of us to help bring AIDS out of the shadows, and spread the message that silence is death.    01 Dec 2006    Africa: Time for a rethink on AIDS campaigns - UNAIDS.    Friday is annual World AIDS Day but despite a boom in publicity campaigns such as this one, the disease continues to spread in Africa because basic details about the illness are not reaching the right people, UNAIDS has warned.    According to a report released last week by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 4.3 million new cases of HIV were registered in 2006 and 65 percent of them were in Africa. Some three million people met an early death because of HIV/AIDS in 2006, the report said.    In sub-Saharan Africa, there are 24.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, five million more than in 2004.    A glimmer of hope comes from West Africa, where except for Mali the prevalence shows signs of stabilising, and in some cases even slowing.    Southern Africa remains the most affected region, but isolated Zimbabwe has nonetheless registered a drop in prevalence rates amongst pregnant women, the report said.    Prevention is the key, according to UNAIDS.    "New data suggests that where HIV prevention programmes have not been sustained and/or adapted as epidemics have changed - infection rates are staying the same or going up," UNAIDS said in a statement at the report"s release.    The report singled out Uganda as an example both of possibilities and pitfalls. Often praised for reducing its infection rate from 20 to six percent in ten years, thanks to a voluntary prevention policy, Uganda is now showing a resurgence in HIV/AIDS infections.    "This is worrying - as we know increased HIV prevention programmes in these countries have shown progress in the past - Uganda being a prime example," said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS. "This means that countries are not moving at the same speed as their epidemics."    According to the UNAIDS report, "People at highest risk - youths, women and girls, men who have sex with men, sex workers and their clients, injecting drug users and ethnic and cultural minorities - are not adequately reached through HIV prevention and treatment strategies because not enough is known about their particular situation."    The report did point towards healthier sexual behaviour among youths, which it said contributed to a decline in prevalence rates in youths between 2000 and 2005, especially in Rwanda, Burundi and urban areas in Burkina Faso and Cote d"Ivoire.    But Piot said that is not enough. "Action must not only be increased dramatically, but must also be strategic, focused and sustainable to ensure that the money reaches those who need it most," he said.    1 December 2006    HIV afflicting global workforce. (BBC News)    Rallies are taking place in many countries to mark World Aids Day    HIV/Aids is having a crippling effect on the workforce of many countries, a report by the International Labour Organization for World Aids Day says.    The ILO said HIV/Aids killed almost 3.5 million people of working age in 2005.    South Africa, among the worst-affected nations, has announced a plan aiming to halve the infection rate by 2011 and to boost the use of antiretrovirals.    In a speech to mark World Aids Day, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged more frank and open discussion of HIV/Aids.    All politicians had to consider themselves personally accountable for stopping the spread of the disease, Mr Annan said, as did every individual.    "It requires every one of us to help bring Aids out of the shadows and spread the message that silence is death," he said.    South Africa"s government has in the past been accused of not doing enough to fight the HIV/Aids pandemic. More than five million South Africans are infected with the virus.    The announcement by Deputy-President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka of a five-year action plan was expected to mark a significant change in policy.    However, the BBC"s Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says Friday"s launch was downgraded from a fully-fledged plan to a framework document. Many details of the new policy have still to be spelt out, he says.    South Africa"s former policy, which emphasised diet over the use of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, was widely criticised.    "Breathtaking" challenge    Figures recently released by the UN reveal that in terms of numbers, India is now facing the most severe HIV/Aids burden of any country in the world, with 5.7 million people infected.    Former US President Bill Clinton said in a BBC interview that India was the new epicentre of global infection. He described the challenge to control the spread of the virus in India as "breathtaking".    In its report, the ILO calls for sustained action worldwide to improve access to AVR treatments to cut mortality rates. Without this, it estimates that the cumulative loss to the global workforce from the virus could rise to 45 million by 2010 and almost double again by 2020.    ILO estimates that more than 36 million people of working age are now living with the virus, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa. This has had a damaging effect on the availability of labour in the worst-affected countries and has stunted economic growth.    The ILO conducted research into the impact of the virus on 43 countries with some of the highest rates of infection in the world. More than 70% of these countries were in sub-Saharan Africa.    Based on its findings, it has estimated that 1.3 million new jobs have been lost every year between 1992 and 2004 because of the virus. This, in turn, reduced annual economic growth by an average of 0.5% over the period and 0.7% for sub-Saharan countries.    "HIV/Aids is adding an enormous burden to countries struggling to emerge from poverty," said Odile Frank, one of the report"s authors. "We need more employment opportunities for people with HIV/Aids and an end to discrimination against people with the virus to help them to secure work."    Treatment imperative    More than two million children around the world are now living with Aids while those aged 15-24 account for half of new infections.    The ILO said many children were forced to seek employment because they were living in extreme poverty, while their parents had either died from Aids or were too sick to work.    Other children found themselves working in unregulated industries such as the sex trade which exposed them to being infected.    The ILO said increased access to ARV treatments could significantly reduce the impact on the global workforce.    "The prospect of averting between one-fifth and one-quarter of potential new losses to the labour force should serve as a powerful incentive to target the workplace as a major entry point to achieve universal access to ARVs," the report concluded.    1 December 2006,    Clinton warns India over HIV/Aids.    Former United States President Bill Clinton says India is now the epicentre of the global HIV/Aids epidemic.    Mr Clinton described the challenge to control the spread of HIV in India as a "breathtaking" but said there was still time to limit the impact of the virus. Mr Clinton, whose foundation is active in fighting HIV, made his comments in a BBC interview to mark World Aids Day.    The UN estimates that India has the highest number of HIV infections of any nation, 5.7 million people,    "When you"ve got a billion people, and they are as disparate as the Indians are - disparate languages, different living conditions, different income and education levels - the education challenge and the challenge to overcome the stigma of discrimination is breathtaking," Mr Clinton told the BBC"s Damian Grammaticas.    But he said that India"s successes in other areas augured well for the challenges ahead. "If [Indians] will just apply the same commitment and ingenuity to dealing with this that they did to developing and information technology economy, then they"ll have the same results. "This is not rocket science. We know what to do," he said.    HIV in India has already spread beyond high risk groups such as prostitutes. Migrant workers who travel from remote villages looking for work in the cities are spreading the virus to every corner of the country, our correspondent says.    Even a small further increase in infection rate could mean that up to 25 million Indians contract HIV in the coming years.    On Thursday, Mr Clinton gave details of a new initiative in which two Indian companies will supply 19 antiretroviral drugs for HIV-infected children at a greatly reduced price. The cheap drugs, according to the statement, will be available in 62 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean.    01 Dec 2006    Discrimination still harms China AIDS fight-UN. (Reuters)    China is moving in the right direction in the fight against HIV/AIDS, a top U.N. official said on Friday, but needs more education to combat discrimination and stigma, particularly in the nation"s vast interior.    U.N. China Resident Coordinator Khalid Malik said there was "great unevenness" in the supply of health care and tools in the fight against AIDS at regional level.    "There is no longer a big challenge at the central government level in China. The challenge is now firmly in the provinces," Khalid said. "Overcoming stigma and discrimination is really what we need to concentrate on."    China has offered free anti-retroviral drug treatment to registered HIV/AIDS patients, but fear of discrimination prevents many from coming forward.    Malik said that the reported number of cases was the "tip of the iceberg" and that more "behaviour" education was required to overcome people"s fear and ignorance about HIV/AIDS.    "Asian societies are reluctant to talk about sex ... Silence does kill, so we need to talk about it a lot more," he said.    After initially being slow to acknowledge the threat, Beijing has stepped up the fight against HIV/AIDS in recent years, increasing spending on prevention programmes and implementing anti-discrimination legislation.    November 29, 2006    World AIDS Day 2006: Ideology Trumps Action as Epidemic Worsens.    Twenty-five years after AIDS was first identified, programs to fight the disease continue to be undermined by conservative ideologies and moralistic approaches, Human Rights Watch said ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.    “The most effective approaches for preventing HIV/AIDS are not being used,” said Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. “Governments are refusing to adopt evidence-based programs that respect individual rights, and are instead promoting ideological campaigns that make people more vulnerable to infection.”    Human Rights Watch identified a number of examples from around the world affecting those most at risk of HIV infection, including youth, women, and injecting drug users.    In sub-Saharan Africa, a majority of young adults lack adequate knowledge of HIV transmission. Yet some governments emphasize “abstinence-only” approaches and promote inaccurate information about the effectiveness of condoms. For example, in Uganda the government promotes “virginity parades” and restricts the availability of condoms to youth while the epidemic – in a country once considered a “success story” – has worsened dramatically.    Women are increasingly recognized as the “face” of AIDS, but governments refuse to address the human rights abuses that cause their vulnerability. One in three women will face some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime, and studies have found that women who experience violence are up to three times more likely to become infected.    One in three new infections outside Africa affects injecting drug users. Few governments, though, are adopting such proven strategies as substitution therapy for drug addiction or the provision of clean needles. In Russia, where the epidemic is concentrated among injecting drug users, the government has refused to permit the use of methadone and has hindered the widespread availability of clean needles.    Six months ago, UN members signed a declaration recognizing that the protection and realization of human rights is essential in the global fight against AIDS. “The theme for this year’s World AIDS Day is ‘Keep the Promise,’” Amon said. “But unless governments adopt effective approaches that respect the rights of those most vulnerable to the disease, their broken promises will add up to millions more infected with HIV.”    At the International AIDS Conference in Toronto last August, Human Rights Watch collected audio testimony from AIDS activists and individuals living with HIV worldwide, who present personal stories and perspectives on what is needed in the global AIDS fight.    “Listen to their stories and you can begin to understand the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the failure of the world’s governments to address it,” Amon said.    To hear the testimonies of AIDS activists and those living with HIV which Human Rights Watch recorded at the 16th annual International AIDS Conference, ckick on the link below. 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