United Press International - Friday, 29 June 2001
Richard Sale

The conference, they said, also highlighted the need to protect women and children.

Critics contended that the closing declaration, which committed the world community to specific timetables and goals to reduce the number of victims of the disease, is only rhetoric, and that the Global Health Aids Fund proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will be unworkable. They said pledges from donors such as the United States, France, Great Britain and Japan will be absorbed by administrative costs, or corrupt governments will siphon the funds off to Swiss bank accounts. Profits will go only to the drug companies, they said.

Dr. Lant Pritchett, a Harvard teacher of developmental economics, said in recent public statements that while AIDS is a catastrophe, one-third of Africa's children are malnourished and that 140 babies in every 1,000 will die before the age of 1.

Other critics noted that other diseases in the developing world such as measles and hepatitis B each kill 1 million children a year. Rotavirus, a disease of the intestinal tract, kills 125 million children annually. Is fighting AIDS then so much more important than these other diseases?

"With AIDS there has always been stigma, denial, ridicule, shame," said Prom Boon Panitchpakdi, country manager for CARE/Thailand. When the disease began in his country, "everyone was in state of denial," which greatly aided its spread, he said.

Panitchpakdi said the main achievement of the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS was that it "really began to talk of the rights of women."

Dr. Helene Gayle, director of the National Center for HIV, STD and Tuberculosis Prevention within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that while the U.N. special session rightly focused on the devastating effects of AIDS on the African continent, another benefit was that it also gave a look at Asia, "which is a disaster in the making."

In that region, she said, most women are infected by heterosexual contact.

Dr. Daniel Tarantola, senior policy adviser to the director general of UNAIDS, said evidence showed that the "transmission of the disease occurred frequently from mother to child," and through unsafe blood and blood products. This resulted in "a mosaic of epidemics" evolving in parallel, he said.

Even in the United States, heterosexual transmission is the leading factor in the spread of the disease, Gayle said.

But the situation of women and infants is especially grave in Asian countries like Thailand.

"Women have no way to legally defend themselves from having sex with an infected husband," said Panitchpakdi. "It's the man who dictates when the couple will have sex."

In the beginning, it was sex workers who caught the diseases, he said. The husband was infected first, and then he infected his wife. She discovers she's infected when she goes for a pregnancy test, he said. "When a woman is pregnant is not the time for her to find out she has a deadly disease."

The husband's first reaction to knowing he was infected was to "go and spend all the family savings on himself in the hope of a cure," said Panitchpakdi. If he finally grew ill, she attended to his care. But when he finally died, the wife found herself "with very few financial resources left," he said.

At Wednesday's news conference, Annan said of the final declaration: "If one idea stands out clearly in this declaration, it is that women are in the forefront of this battle." He also said the key was "empowerment -- it starts with education, particularly of young girls."

"It was wonderful to hear," Panitchpakdi said. "The more we can talk about the disease clearly and out in the open, the better off everyone will be."

Tarantola agreed: "The session provide an opportunity to open the debate, to discuss the words and concepts, principles that needed to be discussed."

Regarding the $7 billion to $10 billion that Annan requested in battling the disease, Carol Pineau, senior media manager at Save the Children, said she didn't think it an "unreasonable figure" at all.

"It's needed to provide services," she said, adding that the United States "provides 25 percent of such health budgets, and we should." She spoke of Save the Children programs in Malawi "which have proven to be ground-breaking programs at the grass-roots level," but which lack funds. Funds are especially needed to be set aside for orphans and children vulnerable to the disease.

And it must be done quickly. By the year 2010 some 15,000 teachers will have died in Tanzania alone.

"Who is going to teach the children?" Pineau asked. Community-based plans are likely to prove the most effective mean of fighting AIDS in the developing world, she said.

"Communities are resourceful. In one case, they can set up a communal vegetable garden, if the village is short of food, or a villager can learn the paper-making business and use the proceeds to care for stricken family members," she said.

Pineau said: "People are debating about doing certain portions of the program, but it all needs to be done."

Did she think women would sustain the momentum of the fight against AIDS?

"Women and activists, oh absolutely," she said.
010629
UP0100616

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2001. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 2001. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .