AIDS Vaccine Week | March 22, 2004 Citing a health crisis "of unprecedented proportions," 55 European and Central Asian nations vowed to halt the fast-spreading virus that causes AIDS, agreeing on an ambitious agenda of providing increased and improved treatment and prevention.
Officials pledged to provide as early as 2005 "universal access" to prevention, treatment and care, including antiretroviral drugs that slow the development of HIV into full-blown AIDS.
"The HIV/AIDS epidemic threatens to become a crisis of unprecedented proportions in our region, undermining public health, development, social cohesion, national security and political stability in many of our countries," the declaration stated.
The United Nations has set a goal to provide 3 million people worldwide - including 100,000 in Europe and Central Asia - with antiretroviral drugs by 2010. The declaration also vowed to eliminate HIV infection among infants by 2010 and "early implementation" of a World Trade Organization agreement to bring cheaper generic drugs on the market.
The countries attending the 2-day meeting in Dublin did not pledge a specific amount of money.
The meeting ended with pleas for the 15-nation European Union to play a more active role in combating the HIV/AIDS virus that is spreading through Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Ten new members, most of them Eastern European nations, are joining the bloc in May.
"The European Union, in my view, has a special responsibility," said Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations AIDS organization.
Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, whose country now holds the E.U. presidency, said the E.U. must become "the linchpin" in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic together with the United States.
"We should cooperate on the supply of lifesaving drugs to the infected in the poorest countries and assume global leadership in the fight against the disease," notably in sub-Saharan Africa, Cowen said.
U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled a 5-year US$15 billion emergency plan to combat AIDS, including US$9 billion in new funding to accelerate prevention, treatment and care in 14 of the most affected countries, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, 40 million people are infected with the HIV virus or suffer from full-blown AIDS. In 2002, 2.5 million people died of the disease, 2 million of them in Africa.
United Nations data show Eastern Europe and Central Asia suffering the world's fastest infection rate: as many as 1.8 million people - up from 30,000-40,000 in 1998 - are infected with HIV.
Worst off are Russia, Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia. One in every 100 adults in Russia, Ukraine and Estonia carries HIV, according to the U.N. Development Program.
It reported more than 257,000 HIV cases in Russia in 2003, but experts believe the real number is between 700,000 and 1.5 million.
Officials also noted that the availability of antiretroviral therapy had started to make AIDS- and HIV-sufferers in Western Europe complacent. AIDS death rates in Western Europe fell from more than 20,000 in 1996 to 3500, but the region saw 30,000-40,000 new infections last year, Piot said.
Across Europe and Central Asia, people most at risk of infection are intravenous drug users and their sexual partners, male homosexuals, sex workers, prisoners and ethnic minorities, said the conference statement.
The conference brought together health ministers from 55 nations - from Ireland to the Caucasus - as well as South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Irish rock star Bob Geldof.
The World Bank said new prevention and treatment programs in the region required a fivefold increase in funding - from US$300 million in 2001 to US$1.5 billion by 2007.AIDS Vaccine Week:
