World Aids Day press release from Kofi n

[Guest guest]

Press Release

SG/SM/9014

AIDS/65

OBV/393

AIDS EPIDEMIC `CONTINUES ITS LETHAL MARCH', AS INTERNATIONAL ACTION

STILL FAR

SHORT OF WHAT IS NEEDED, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL ON WORLD AIDS DAY

Following is Secretary-General Kofi n's message on the occasion

of World AIDS Day, observed 1 December:

Two years ago, the world's nations agreed that defeating HIV/AIDS

would require commitment, resources and action. At the General

Assembly's special session on HIV/AIDS in 2001, they adopted the

Declaration of Commitment, a set of specific, time-bound targets for

fighting the epidemic.

Today, we have the commitment. Our resources are increasing. But

the action is still far short of what is needed.

Significant new funding to fight the epidemic has been pledged, both

by individual governments and through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,

Tuberculosis and Malaria. The vast majority of countries have in

place broad national strategies to combat HIV/AIDS. A growing number

of corporations are adopting policies on HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

Increasingly, community and faith-based groups -- which have often

taken the lead in the fight against AIDS -- are working as full

partners with governments and others in mounting a coordinated

response.

But, at the same time, the epidemic continues its lethal march around

the world, with few signs of slowing down. In the course of the past

year, every minute of every day, some 10 people were infected. In

the hardest-hit regions, life expectancy is plummeting. HIV/AIDS is

spreading at an alarming rate among women, who now account for half

of those infected worldwide. And the epidemic is expanding most

rapidly in regions which had previously been largely spared --

especially in Eastern Europe and across all of Asia, from the Urals

to the Pacific Ocean.

We have failed to reach several of the Declaration's targets set for

this year. Even more important, we are not on track to begin

reducing the scale and impact of the epidemic by the target year of

2005. By then, we should have cut by a quarter the number of young

people infected with HIV in the worst affected countries; we should

have halved the rate at which infants become infected; and we should

have comprehensive care programmes in place everywhere. At the

current rate, we will not achieve any of those targets by 2005.

Clearly, we must work even harder to match our commitment with the

necessary resources and action. We cannot claim that competing

challenges are more important, or more urgent. We must keep AIDS at

the top of our political and practical agenda.

That is why we must continue to speak up openly about AIDS. No

progress will be achieved by being timid, refusing to face unpleasant

facts, or prejudging our fellow human beings -- still less by

stigmatizing people living with HIV/AIDS. Let no one imagine that we

can protect ourselves by building barriers between " us " and " them " .

In the ruthless world of AIDS, there is no us and them. And in that

world, silence is death.

On this World AIDS Day, I urge you to join me in speaking up loud and

clear about HIV/AIDS. Join me in tearing down the walls of silence,

stigma and discrimination that surround the epidemic. Join me,

because the fight against HIV/AIDS begins with you.