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HEALTH: Universal HIV/AIDS Treatment Goals Receding

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 11 2008 (IPS) - As millions of people across the world continue to die from HIV/AIDS, top U.N. officials and civil society leaders are reiterating calls for increased funding to fight the deadly epidemic.

“There were more than two millions death last year,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates at a major international gathering that started here Tuesday. “This situation is not acceptable.”

In addressing the two-day meeting on HIV/AIDS, the U.N. chief warned that the gap between the “available resources” and “actual need’ was hampering goals to achieve universal access.

“The world will fall short of achieving access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care in the absence of a significant increase in the level of resources available in low and middle-income countries,” he said.

Last year, the world spent some 10 billion dollars on HIV treatment and prevention – a figure that has been steadily increasing – yet there are still more than 32 million people who are living with HIV/AIDS.

U.N. studies show that in 2007, only 3 million people in low and middle-income countries had access to anti-retroviral coverage. That, despite an increased level of support for treatment of 42 percent.

According to a recent U.N. report, Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for at least 68 percent of all adults living with HIV, 90 percent of the world’s children, and 76 percent of all AIDS-related deaths in 2007. Although on a global level there has been a decrease in the number of HIV infections, a new U.N. study suggests that people in certain countries remain especially vulnerable.

According to the secretary-general’s report submitted to the General Assembly this month, the number of infections is increasing in China, Indonesia, Russia, Ukraine, some European Union countries and North America.

The report says that the number of new infections has yet to go down in some of the most heavily affected countries, such as Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa. Its authors say even where infection levels have declined, the dimensions of the epidemic remain “alarming”.

“Every day, almost 7,000 people are needlessly affected because they do not have access to proven interventions to prevent transmission,” said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Piot told a news conference Tuesday the world was finally starting to see “real results” in the fight against AIDS, but added it still had “a long way to go”.

“There is a real danger in keeping up ‘a business as usual’ attitude about the breadth and depth of the pandemic,” he said. “The international community can – and must – back up its commitments.”

Piot challenged the notion that enough money was being made available to fight the disease. According to him, in 2007, there was a shortfall of some 8 billion dollars for programmes focused on HIV care and prevention.

“If the international community wants to get anywhere near universal access to HIV prevention,” he said, “the world will need to significantly increase investment.”

Piot said the stakeholders must keep prioritising the mantra of “making the money work for people”, adding that the challenge to “us all now is to stay the course right through to the very end and never give up.”

Civil society leaders participating in the two-day U.N. meeting on HIV/AIDS held similar views.

“It’s one of the key aspects,” Sara Speicher of the U.S.-based Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) told IPS in response to a question about the issue of funding for HIV treatment and care programmes.

“The governments actually never met the targets,” she said, adding that many are also not “fully committed” to increasing their financial support.

In addition to raising questions about the lack of funding for HIV treatment programmes, many participants at the U.N. meeting also expressed concerns about the widespread discrimination against people living with the disease.

Ratri Suksma of the Coordination of Action Research on AIDS, a non-governmental organisation, told the General Assembly that she was HIV-positive and because of that revelation, she had difficulty in entering at least 70 countries around the world.

She said she risked being stripped of her property, adding that when she had discovered her status, many in her country believed that only sex workers and drug users could get infected. She said she was neither of those.

Suksma, who comes from Indonesia, said she and other women who are HIV-positive need to be protected against violence and that their right to have access to health care must be protected and respected.

“Are we not all humans and deserving of equal treatment and access?” she asked.