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AIDS-Africa: UNAIDS head appeals for social mobilisation against AIDS

Agence France-Presse - December 4, 2000 click here for francais language version click here for espanol language version

ADDIS ABEBA, Dec 4 (AFP) - The head of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, appealed here Monday for a social mobilisation against AIDS, which affects more than 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Reducing vulnerability to AIDS and its impact is about creating a social vaccine, or better a social immune system," Piot told African decision-makers, AIDS and development experts at the second African Development Forum.

"AIDS is an emergency but a very long-term emergency," he told the 1,500 participants at the five-day conference. "AIDS can only be curbed through a sustainable social mobilisation."

Leadership needed to be shown at all levels, from prevention and care to the fight against social stigmatisation of HIV and AIDS victims, Piot added.

"Our goal is to have a next generation which is AIDS free," he said.

He also called for a new kind of cooperation between governments and drug companies in developing a vaccine against AIDS. "The world needs nothing less than a new deal between the pharmaceutical industries and society."

The gathering aims to break a law of silence and rejection around AIDS, and to attack practices and taboos which have existed to date, and which critics say have fostered its spread.

Africa is the continent the worst hit by the disease, but also the one which has provided the least adequate response.

AIDS has killed 2.4 million Africans in 2000 alone and currently affects more than 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations reckons it will create 40 million African orphans in the next 10 years.

The forum involves the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa UNECA, UNAIDS, the UN development programme UNDP, the UN children's organisation UNICEF, the World Bank and private participants.

The conference carries the motto "AIDS: the greatest leadership challenge."

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