OUAGADOUGOU, Dec 10 (AFP) - UNAIDS director Peter Piot Monday urged "massive international support" to finance the fight against AIDS in poverty-stricken Africa, where the scourge is the worst in the world.
"The planning phase is over. We have enough plans, we know what has to be done. Now we have to move on to action," Piot told reporters during the 12th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa being held here.
"Massive international support is needed. Africa is ready, but financial aid from rich countries is indispensable.
"The fall in prices of medicines is spectacular but is as yet still insufficient to permit universal access," Piot added.
The UNAIDS head said about 500 million dollars was spent this year on fighting AIDS in Africa, but that according to a conservative estimate, the figure required annually is about five billion dollars.
He said supplementary funds could come from the national budgets of African nations, many of which had stepped up spending on health, as well as from North-South cooperation, international financial institutions and a UN-backed proposed global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Stephen Lewis, a special representative of the UN secretary general for AIDS in Africa, urged the world community to donate generously.
"2002 must be a breakthrough year for international donors," he said, adding: "We have waited long enough. If I were an African leader, I would be running out of patience with the donor community."
Lewis also alluded to the September 11 terror attacks and the overwhelming global response to them.
"While the world seems capable of responding to the terrorist impact, it seems incapable of responding to the cumulative impact of AIDS," he said.
"There is more than enough money available. The question is who is making the decisions? The money is there, we simply have to make the decision to release it," he said.
Other issues, including access to superior AIDS treatments, notably tritherapies, dominated Monday's talks.
Experts stressed that such treatments were vital for Africa, which accounts for 70 percent of global AIDS-linked deaths.
"Access to anti-retrovirals is maybe a utopia but it is a necessary one," said Aliou Sylla, a doctor from Mali.
"Don't start an ideological battle here. The anti-retrovirals are an element of competence against AIDS. Let us try and get them for free," he said to thunderous cheers.
The five-day AIDS conference, with the theme of "Community Solutions," formally opened in Ouagadougou late Sunday.
In rich countries, the arrival of tritherapies in 1996 revolutionised AIDS treatment -- a phenomenon which has had virtually no effect in Africa given the costs involved.
Despite the signing of several pacts between African countries and leading global pharmaceutical companies for cheaper medicines, especially anti-retroviral drugs, access to treatment for the average African is still limited and far too expensive.
Some 30,000 people in Africa have benefited from tritherapies, a figure the UNAIDS agency has dismissed as "minute."
The agency said that of the 40 million people today living with AIDS or HIV, 28.1 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, and the continent witnessed 2.3 million AIDS-related deaths this year.
UNAIDS said that in the absence of proper treatment, most HIV-positive Africans are not expected to survive the present decade.
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