Inter Press Service - September 22, 2003
Ushani Agalawatta

That means member states will not meet basic HIV/AIDS prevention and care goals adopted in the 2001 U.N. Declaration of Commitments on HIV/AIDS, said a report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"We are not on track to begin reducing the scale and impact of the epidemic by 2005," Annan told a special session of the General Assembly.

"By that date we should have cut by a quarter the number of young people infected by HIV in the worst affected nations; we should have halved the rate at which infants contract HIV; and we should have comprehensive care programs in place."

Civil society echoed Annan.

"Funding is the issue. The world knows what it needs to do in this area to stop the globalised epidemic and the single biggest issue that we are facing is the lack of adequate resources, and that is basically what the U..N. said today," David Bryden, communications director of Washington-based Global AIDS Alliance, told IPS.

"Countries that are affected are doing a lot -- declaring national emergencies, putting additional budgetary allotments into fighting the epidemic.. You've got some real sttrong leaders on this rallying their public and talking frankly on this epidemic," he added.

"But what it's going to take is significant outside help and unfortunately the United States sort of gives people a false sense that things are well on there way to being tackled while it is not doing its part to deal with the crisis."

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, established after the 2001 U.N. General Assembly special session, has received pledges of about 4.7 billion dollars.

"Yet we are still only halfway to the 10 billion dollars a year that is needed by 2005," Annan told Monday's special session.

As of 2002, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that almost 8,000 adults and children are dying each day of HIV/AIDS and 42 million adults and children are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Almost 50 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS are women and girls.

U.S. President George W. Bush has come under increasing criticism in recent days. According to Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action: "A review of the Bush Administration's AIDS policies reveals a litany of broken promises and betrayals."

"It is outrageous that the president is allowed to claim so much credit for hollow words and empty initiatives. This is the real story that the media should be covering," he added in a news release.

In his state of the union address in January, Bush committed 15 billion dollars over five years to fight HIV/AIDS, in the worst affected areas of Africa and the Caribbean. Congress has so far approved only 400 million dollars this year, for the Global Fund.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson defended the administration's initiatives Monday. "It doesn't make sense to put three billion dollars in the first year when the infrastructure is still in the embryonic stages being built," he said at the United Nations.

"We want to do it in a sensible, common sense, responsible way that we are going to have results. Therefore it is much wiser to spend two billion in the first year and ramp it up over the next couple of years."

Bryden called that "an absurd statement. The president made it pretty clear when he announced the initiative that part of the money would go to building infrastructure, so what Tommy Thompson is in fact saying is that, 'we can't provide funding for infrastructure because there is no infrastructure'."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Monday launched a plan to provide antiretroviral treatments (AIDS drugs) to three million people in developing countries by the end of 2005.

Funding is to come from the Global Fund, the World Bank and the Bush initiative, Dr. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, told journalists.

French President Jacques Chirac told the special session his country supports the new initiative.

"For that the Fund requires at least three billion dollars annually. I hereby reaffirm the objective that the European Union and the United States each provide one billion dollars a year, with the other donor countries providing the remaining billion."

Feachem said talks continue between the Global Fund, Washington and the World Bank about whether the Bush administration will fund the new plan.

Civil society groups are pessimistic.

"The Bush administration is not committed to a collaborative international response to AIDS," Bryden said.

According to Africa Action, most of the three billion dollars promised in the president's state of the union address will likely not be requested till at least 2005.

"This is after Bush's term in office will have ended, so there is no guarantee this will be requested at all. Even more importantly, this deadly delay will cost millions of African lives," Booker said.

"Today's reports are a dramatic wake-up call to the world," UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot said in a media statement. "The goals, set by the member states themselves two years ago, must be met if we are going to have any realistic chance of reversing this devastating epidemic."

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+U.N. Special Session (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=8312&Cr=HIV&Cr1=AIDS)

+World Health Organisation (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/pr67/en/)

+Global Fund (http://www.globalfundatm.org/)

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