AEGiS-IFRC: Commission hears "AIDS most serious threat to human dignity"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Commission hears "AIDS most serious threat to human dignity"

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 5 December 2003

"The issue is to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on vulnerable people", said Dr Tito Fachi, President of the Zambia Red Cross Society, at the start of a powerful address to an International Conference Commission on reducing the risk of HIV/AIDS. "It is the most serious threat to human dignity."

In 2002, he told delegates, there were five million new infections around the world, and three million died of the disease, the highest annual figures yet seen. Now 42 million people live with HIV/AIDS, 95 per cent of them in developing countries and 75 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa. "This pandemic threatens the viability of our societies, but worse, it even threatens the viability of our countries."

People will continue to die until drugs are freely available, he insisted. Also in 2002, six million people in developing countries needed antiretroviral drugs urgently, over four million in Sub-Saharan Africa. "But only 50,000 get them, less than one per cent of those in need. We canÆt allow this to continue," he said.

Dr Fachi went on to discuss the groups he identifies as vulnerable û women and children; migrants, prisoners and the internally displaced; people living with HIV/AIDS; and the general population. He reminded delegates that in Sub-Saharan Africa, HIV is mostly transmitted by heterosexual contact, which puts the whole of society at risk.

Anandi Yuvaraj, of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, said she had been living with HIV for seven years. "Stigma and discrimination kills us before AIDS does," she pointed out, noting that the worst discrimination took place in the healthcare setting. "The denial of treatment, including anti-retroviral drugs, is discrimination" she added.

It is here, she feels, that the Red Cross and Red Crescent can make a real difference. It must update the skills of medical workers to end discrimination. There is a huge gap of knowledge, she said, between clients and healthcare workers. To be an active partner in the management of their own treatment is important for people living with HIV/AIDS, and with their knowledge and experience these people can play an important role in combating the disease. "We can be part of the solution".

Marika Fahlen, director of social mobilization and information for UNAIDS, spoke of the improved methods of establishing with accuracy the spread of the virus, and added further challenging statistics. Lates figures from the UN agency show that there are 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS, an annual increase of five million.

The rate of increase is growing, she said, with no check in the rate of new infections in Sub-Saharan Africa. The one encouraging number concerns young women between 15 and 24 years of age in urban areas in some developing countries, where there has been a small decline in the rate of growth. But to illustrate the dramatic spread of the disease, Fahlen pointed out that the number of new infections in 2002 was the entire number of cases just 15 years ago.

Access to appropriate facilities across the world is dismal, according to Ms Fahlen. Only one person in nine has access to testing, and care for orphans is non-existent, even though there are 14 million children in the world orphaned by HIV/AIDS; a figure which will rise to 20 million in the next seven years.

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