WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (AFP) - The world's deadliest year yet for AIDS was marked with concerts, processions and speeches Wednesday, as the United Nations focused on women, who are suffering a increasing share of new cases.
"Keeping women healthy is not only the right thing to do it's the smart thing to do," UNAIDS director Peter Piot said on World AIDS Day.
"We must put women at the center of the response to AIDS."
Alarmed by new data showing that women represent an increasing share of new cases of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, known as HIV, UN officials chose to focus on their needs in this year's World AIDS Day observance.
More than 23 million people have died since AIDS first emerged in 1981 as a disease that wrecks the immune system, leaving the body exposed to infection by other viruses and bacteria.
An estimated 3.1 million people will have died in 2004, the highest toll in any single year, as the rate of infection continues to outrace prevention efforts.
Women now account for 47 percent of the 39.4 million people around the world infected with HIV, an increase of six percentage points since 1997.
Women make up nearly 60 percent of HIV cases in sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest hit by the disease, a UNAIDS report released last week said.
The report said 15- to 24-year-old women are three times more likely to be infected than males of the same age.
Piot and others told a news conference in Washington that poverty and discrimination against women make them particularly vulnerable to HIV infection.
"We are now tired. We have had enough statistics," said Asunta Wagura, founder and executive director of Kenya Network of Women with AIDS. "Let us now spend the resources in saving lives."
Wagura offered her story as an example of the devastating impact of AIDS on women. She said she was kicked out of nursing school and disowned by her family after being diagnosed as HIV-positive 16 years ago. Her experience prompted her to fight to improve the lot of Kenyan women affected by the disease.
"One thing that HIV has taught me is there always is room for change," she said. "It's heartbreaking that we live with death staring at our faces."
Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women, called for an expansion of prevention programs -- which focus on abstinence, fidelity in sexual relationships and condom use -- to address the problems stemming from the subordinate role of women in many societies.
"Without that, women will be shut out" from efforts to fight the disease, she said.
Canada said Wednesday it would funnel 88 million US dollars (105 Canadian) into programs targeting women and young girls infected or affected by HIV/AIDS in developing countries.
Earlier this year, US President George W. Bush unveiled a 15-billion-dollar plan to fight the disease in more than 100 nations, focusing on countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
In Europe, British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to make AIDS one of the priorities of his presidency of the Group of Eight top industrialized countries next year.
Many European countries staged exhibitions and seminars on ways of tackling sexual coercion, poverty, lack of rights and empowerment in male-dominated societies, a key element in the spread of HIV among women.
That message was echoed by contestants at the Miss World competition on the Chinese tropical resort island of Hainan.
"From the day we are born, we have no right to decide," said Miss Tanzania, 19-year-old law student Faraja Kotta.
"Girls cannot decide whether they want to go to school, cannot decide who they will marry, cannot decide when they will be sexually active. Girls have no right to education, they are always second place."
Meanwhile, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao called for "still greater, substantial efforts" to stir public awareness, backed by a nationwide mobilization of officials to implement "all preventive and control policies and measures."
Chinese authorities for years denied the threat AIDS posed to the nation's 1.3 billion people, but have recently begun to face it.
Beijing officially estimates it has 840,000 HIV-infected people, but many AIDS experts contend the true figure is much higher. Some estimates suggest the number of cases could reach as high as 10 million by 2010 if effective action is not taken to stem the rate of infection.
In India -- named alongside China and Russia as a plum target after the destruction wrought by AIDS in Africa -- Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss announced that 1.5 billion condoms would be distributed nationwide, backed by an intense media campaign.
"We are going all-out, and within six months the whole country should know about HIV/AIDS and its implication," he told parliament.
In Southern Africa, governments renewed their vows to promote prevention, tackle stigma and discrimination and speed up distribution of drugs which keep the virus at bay.
Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika said he hoped a million of Malawi's 11 million people would go for voluntary HIV tests next year, and set the 2005 target of boosting the number of people in free drug programs from 9,000 to 80,000.
Africa is home to nearly two-thirds of the world's HIV cases -- some 25.4 million, according to UN figures -- and three-quarters of all infected females.
AIDS has driven life expectancy to less than 40 years in nine African countries: Botswana, the Central African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In Iran, meanwhile, health experts warned that the country's growing AIDS problem was shifting from drug users into the bedroom, and urged Islamic authorities to go further in breaking the taboo over talking about sex.
"The trend of transmission has changed from intravenous drug users to high-risk sexual behavior," said Minoo Mohraz, a doctor and specialist in Iran's official AIDS Association.
"People cannot afford to get married so young and are getting married older. The gap is being filled by more prostitution. AIDS is still largely a taboo, and policy makers have for a long time been in denial."
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