12 July 2002, BARCELONA
The world is losing the battle against HIV / AIDS, UNAIDS head
Peter Piot told the 14th Annual AIDS conference this week. The situation
will not improve, he says, unless politicians deliver on their promises
of new resources.
Nearly 15,000 scientists and clinicians, health care workers, public
health agents, people living with AIDS, politicians, NGOs and journalists
are now gathered in the Catalunian city of Barcelona, on the Spanish
coast. It's a significant number - roughly the same number are calculated
to get infected by HIV around the world each day.
"AIDS is now a global political issue," he told journalists
before taking part in the opening ceremony. "Top politicians
have, in the past, made a lot of very great speeches, but after the
conferences were over they haven't been translated into action. That
can't be allowed to continue. My theme this week is 'Keeping The Promise'.
"We have US$2.8 billion available this year for AIDS programmes,
prevention and treatment, and orphan programmes in the developing
world," said Piot. "We have a gap, at a conservative estimate,
of $7 billion."
Shaun Mellors, a conference organiser living with AIDS, told journalists
on Sunday not to let the world public grow complacent about the issue.
"We need to make people angry again, we have to get back to the
passion with which we started. We all need to do everything we can
to bring principled leadership and strategic activism."
"We have reached a critical moment in the world"
"We have reached a critical moment in the world," says
Ken Casey, the leader of World Vision's AIDS programmes. "We
cannot turn our back any longer on this crisis. History will judge
each of us according to the way we have met what is perhaps the greatest
challenge our race has faced."
"Anything we can do to help elevate the attention of the powerful
decision makers of the world to the realities of HIV and AIDS on the
international stage is time well spent," he said. "These
conferences are an opportunity to bring together the best minds, the
best resources, the most powerful people in the world - HIV/AIDS is
only going to be resolved through integrated effort, not by a lot
of one-off initiatives. Everyone can learn from everyone else here
- we can get synergy working together."
Casey is leading an international World Vision team at the conference.
As they network and talk to journalists they are taking the consistent
line that the recent increases in global funding for HIV and AIDS
are welcome, but that more should be done - and more should be directed
to the grass roots where it can be demonstrated to have most impact.
More information:
The official conference
web site
Latest
HIV / AIDS statistics form UNAIDS
|
