Inter Press Service - June 27, 1999
Thalif Deen

Annan told the audience at a memorial lecture for Diana, Princess of Wales, in London Friday that the spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is "expanding in new directions." South Asia, Eastern Europe and East Asia and the Pacific are particularly at risk, he said.

The disease is now widely present in Eastern Europe, where five years ago the AIDS virus was almost unknown, he said. Meanwhle, in East Asia and the Pacific, new infections rose by 70 percent between 1996 and 1998, according to UN estimates.

In India, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the primary AIDS carrier, is "now firmly embedded in the general population," Annan said. The secretary-general argued that AIDS is spreading into rural areas of India that were earlier thought to have been spared.

In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, which has a population of 45 million, a survey revealed last year that a nearly half a million people are infected with HIV, and the new infection rate is now three times higher in villages than in cities.

"India as a whole now has more people living with HIV than any other single country in the world," Annan told the meeting in London.

He warned that unless the international community acts fast, these new regions could soon face a crisis "comparable to what we see in many parts of Africa, where whole nations now live under the shadow of AIDS."

"Every minute that passes, as you and I go about the routine business of our lives, four or more young Africans are infected," Annan said. "And every day, Africa buries five and a half thousand of its sons and daughters who have died of AIDS."

The UN secretary-general said the challenge has to be met with increased resources. But the 150 million dollars a year currently being spent on AIDS in Africa alone "comes nowhere near what is needed," he contended.

To carry out a minimally effective package of interventions, the affected countries would require at least a six-fold increase in resources, according to UNAIDS, a Geneva-based inter-agency body which leads the UN's fight against the killer disease.

Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, said recently that AIDS is spreading three times faster than the funding to control it.

Between 1990 and 1997, the number of people infected with the HIV virus more than tripled, according to UN estimates - from about 9.8 million to 30.3 million. But total annual funding to fight AIDS rose only from 165 million dollars to 273 million dollars.

"Twenty years into the epidemic, it is alarming that funding against AIDS is not keeping pace with the spread of the disease," complained Piot. Piot said that the AIDS epidemic - which he called "the single greatest threat to global development today" - has already infected 47 million people and grows by nearly six million new infections annually.

Annan said that some people have the mistaken belief that because better medicines have been found, the AIDS emergency is over.

"There is still no cure for AIDS," he warned. "The advance of HIV has not been stopped in any country. Even in the industrialised world, the rate of new infections has held steady for the past 10 years."

Annan pointed out that the "missing piece" to solving the AIDS puzzle is an effective vaccine. To find it, he said, will take patience, commitment and funds.

Still, the UN system has made some progress in the fight against AIDS in recent years.

The UNAIDS Secretariat is helping to ensure that pharmaceutical companies use HIV strains from developing nations as the base for the vaccines they are developing. Years of preparatory colloboration between the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS has helped to make possible Uganda's first HIV vaccine trial last February.

Meanwhile, the World Bank is exploring possible market failures that could have contributed to under-investment in an AIDS vaccine, and the organisation is designing financial instruments to stimulate private investment.

An International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, with strong support from Britain's Medical Research Council, has succeeded in raising funds from governments and individuals. Bill Gates, the billionaire tycoon who heads the US-based Microsoft Corporation, recently donated 25 million dollars to the Initiative.

A leading British pharmaceutical company, Glaxo WellCome, has launched 'Positive Action,' an international fund which has so far invested more than 60 million dollars in community and partnership projects to fight AIDS.

The company has helped fund a four-year programme of prevention and therapy for selected groups of AIDS patients in the Ivory Coast, with emphasis on preventing infected mothers from passing HIV to their infant children.

Last month, UNAIDS helped launch an initiative by a new partner, Bristol-Myers Squibb, which has pledged 100 million dollars over five years to a new public-private partnership which supports medical research projects, educational efforts and social support mechanisms throughout southern Africa.

"Increasingly, business leaders recognise that their responsibility and their interests lie not only in how their actions affect their shareholders, but in their impact on the societies in which they operate, and on the planet as a whole," Annan said. (END/IPS/td/fah/99)
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