UN conference on AIDS settles on compromise statement

Last week's UN high level meeting on AIDS in New York agreed on a declaration of commitment that was stronger than some countries would have liked but weaker than what non-governmental and pressure groups wanted. Nevertheless, it goes further than the previous declaration of 2001.

Figure 1.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan said: “The epidemic continues to outpace us. Last year more people died [of AIDS] than ever before”

Credit: RICHARD DREW/AP/EMPICS

The secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said that the HIV and AIDS epidemic “has become the greatest challenge of our generation... the epidemic continues to outpace us.”

He said, “Last year, globally, there were more new infections than ever before, and more people died than ever before. There were more women and girls living with HIV/AIDS than ever before... If we don't step up the fight dramatically, we will not reach the millennium development goal of halting, and beginning to reverse, the spread of HIV and AIDS by 2015.”

The declaration recognised HIV and AIDS as a global socioeconomic problem as well as a medical and public health problem. It said the disease is becoming feminised. Nearly 39 million people are infected with HIV; and now almost half of them are women, who are vulnerable to infection because of violence and lack of power in relationships.

The declaration is a political statement, not a plan of action. The meeting agreed that every year $23bn (£12.2bn; €17.7bn) would be needed to tackle the epidemic by 2010, an increase from previous projections. An interim meeting in 2008 will review progress.

The three day session at the UN headquarters aimed to evaluate progress made since the UN's 2001 declaration of commitment to HIV and AIDS— many targets of which have not been met—and to spell out a plan for the years ahead. For the first time representatives of more than 800 non-governmental organisations and pressure groups participated in the meetings, as well as representatives of more than 140 of the UN's 191 member states.

The secretary general said that most countries had failed to meet important goals from 2001. For instance, they had not provided education to young people so they could protect themselves, and they had not taken measures to fight the spread of AIDS among women and girls.

Increasingly HIV and AIDS affect women, said Mary Robinson, former UN high commissioner for human rights.