United Press International - Wednesday, 27 June 2001
Richard Sale

AIDS has infected 36 million people worldwide and has killed 17 million in sub-Saharan Africa in the last 18 months.

Speaking on the last day of the special U.N. General Assembly on AIDS, Annan singled out women as being likely to play the leading role in implementing the plans and timetables outlined in the declaration: "If there is one idea that stands out clearly in this declaration, it is that women are in the forefront of this battle," he said.

"I have said that girl power is Africa's own vaccine and that should be true for the whole world," he said. He said the special session was the first General Assembly session to be held on a health issue.

UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy told reporters that Annan has been very concerned that women have the right to "negotiate for safe sex" without stigma, ridicule or retaliation.

Speaking of women's rights, Annan said they "start with empowerment, it starts with education, particularly of young girls, and I don't mean education in the tradition sense," which in the past has ignored frank discussion of sexual matters.

Annan also praised "as beyond my expectations," the part played by activists from nongovernment organizations. It was their "spirit of attack" that would propel the campaign forward and sustain its momentum," he said.

Highlights of the declaration, obtained by United Press International, sets out a series of targets:

* -- Specific countries should have definite prevention targets to ensure that by 2005, AIDS has been reduced in young men and women ages 15 to 24 by 25 percent in the most affected countries and 25 percent globally by 2010.

* -- National budget planners should also attempt to form strategies to eradicate poverty and boost partnerships with the business sector and civil society. Any developmental planning should include "the full participation" of people living with AIDS by 2003.

* -- There should be national strategies that "address in forthright terms" the stigma, silence and denial that are often associated with the virus. In addition, by 2003, nations should address gender and age-based dimensions of the epidemic.

* -- By 2005, countries should reduce the proportion of infants infected by HIV/AIDS by 20 percent, reaching 50 percent by 2010.

* -- By 2005, countries should establish and carry out prevention and care programs in private and "informal" work centers, including workplace support for victims.

* -- By 2005, expand access to male and female condoms and sterile injecting equipment such as needles.

* -- By 2005, financial land-referral mechanisms should be in place to provide access to affordable medicines, including anti-retroviral drugs,diagnostics and related techologies.

* -- By 2005, set up prevention programs for migrants and mobile workers, including information on health services.

Much of the declaration discusses setting up innovative partnerships among the public sector, private sector and civil society. It urged that educational programs be established and that there be enacted "appropriate anti-discrimination legislation to protect AIDS victims."

Referring to the Global AIDS Health Fund, Annan said, "We have done very well in terms of pledges," and said he hoped that the Group of Eight summit next month in Genoa, Italy, would produce even more. "This is very deserving," he said.

Annan, who called the declaration's recommendations "comprehensive and coordinated," added: "All in all, I feel more confident today than I did three days ago, that we can really defeat this deadly disease."

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