HEALTH-WORLD: Governments renew fight against AIDS

PARIS, Dic 01 (IPS) - Representatives of 42 governments reaffirmed their determination to combat AIDS during an international summit in Paris Thursday -- under the sceptical gaze of people living with the disease.

The government representatives signed up to a Declaration which lays down various principles and also calls for the respect of the rights of people affected with AIDS.

The summit was called for by the French government and co- organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), haunted by more than 10 years of anti-AIDS strategies and programmes -- which the people directly affected say have failed.

The risk, however, that the Declaration might remain just a list of pious intentions was not lost on the summit participants and was particularly felt by people with AIDS and people infected with the HIV virus that leads to AIDS.

"We have procrastinated in bringing a political response to the multiple challenges posed by the spread of the AIDS epidemic," admitted French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in a speech opening the summit.

Part of the blame in the delay lies on countries still denying or too shy to admit the high levels of AIDS infection in their countries, said Michael Sata, Health Minister of Zambia.

"We expect a lot from you," Yolande Simon, a 'HIV positive' delegate from the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, warned government representatives gathered for the summit timed for the World Anti-Aids Day on Dec. 1.

"It has been at least 10 years of doing the things your way," she said, "and despite the promises made 10 years ago about a cure, the reality today is there is none."

"We are tired of the lip service we feel you have been paying our communities."

Citing WHO statistics, U.N. secretary-general Boutros Boutros- Ghali said some 17 million people have been infected with the HIV virus since the epidemic began. Two million have already died and an additional 6,000 more people become infected every day.

The future prospects are "alarming," he said in an address to the gathering and the task facing the international community is "daunting".

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service