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HIV
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AIDS IS
A GLOBAL EMERGENCY – UN
Published in Punch of Wednesday, June 7, 2006
By
Adejuwon Soyinka
Dear Networkers,
World leaders have declared that the HIV/AIDs pandemic constitutes a
global emergency and poses one of the most formidable challenges to
development, progress, and stability.
The leaders made this declaration as part of a joint statement issued
at the close of the 2006 United Nations Special Session on HIV/AIDs
held in New York, USA. While presenting the joint position to a
gathering of Heads of State and governments as well as their
representatives who converged on the UN headquarters for the four-day
session, United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, described
AIDS as the greatest challenge of our generation.
Annan noted with concern that ‘a quarter of a century into the
pandemic, AIDS has inflicted immense suffering on countries and
communities throughout the world’
To
buttress his point, the worlds’ number one civil servant said more
than 65 million people had been infected with HIV, more than 25
million people had died, 15 million children had been orphaned by
AIDS, with millions more made vulnerable, and 40 million people
currently living with HIV, more than 95 per cent of whom are in
developing countries’.
In
his own remarks, the UN General Assembly President Jan Eliasson said,
‘while we have been meeting, over 20,000 people have died as a result
of AIDS and over 30,000 people have been newly infected with HIV’.
Eliasson said, ‘AIDS is not killing people, it is killing development,
particularly in the worst affected area: sub-Saharan Africa. Without
a greatly stepped up response to AIDS the Millennium Development Goals
will be unattainable in that region.
Equally of concern to the UN AIDs summit is what was described as the
overall expansion and feminisation of the pandemic and the fact that
women now represent half of all people living with HIV with nearly 60
percent in Africa.
World leaders expressed grave concern about the fact that half of all
new HIV infections are among children and young people under the age
of 25 and that there is a lack of information, skills and knowledge
regarding HIV/AIDS among young people.
In
addition to this, they said today 2.3 million children are living with
HIV/AIDs while the lack of paediatric drugs in many countries
significantly hinders efforts to protect the health of children
But it is not all gloomy; the UN session also noted that national and
international efforts had resulted in important progress since 2001 in
the areas of funding, expanding access to HIV prevention, treatment,
care and support and in mitigating the impact of AIDS, and in reducing
HIV prevalence in a small but growing number of countries.
The session also recognised the roles played by various donors in
combating HIV/AIDs as well as the fact that one-third of resources
spent on HIV/AIDs responses in 2005 came from the domestic sources of
low and middle income countries.
This year’s session was primarily focused on the review of progress
made so far in implementing the UN declaration of commitment on HIV/AIDs.
The UN declaration of commitment is a product of a session similar o
the recently concluded one and it was held in 2001
Nogi Imoukhuede,
Project Coordinator,
Women's Rights Watch Nigeria-www.rufarm.kabissa.org |