'Aids crisis needs money spent wisely'

The global fight against HIV/Aids needs smart money, not more money, the world’s largest humanitarian agency claimed today.

The World Disasters Report, published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, warned around 7,000 people a day contracted HIV last year.

Experts have called on governments to face the issue head-on by tackling stigma, improving research and community care and guaranteeing clean, safe water and sanitation.

David Andrews, chairman of the Irish Red Cross, launched the report in Dublin and said none of the problems were unique to any single continent or country.

“HIV/Aids is the disaster that keeps on killing. Day after day, families are destroyed, economies wiped out and communities crushed as economies disintegrate, parents die and children are born with the disease,” he said.

“We must grasp the enormity of a disaster that has already killed 25 million - more than a hundred times the number of people killed by the tsunami, our biggest single natural disaster in living memory.”

Campaigners also called for more targeted support to help sufferers.

Dr Mukesh Kapila, co-chair of the Red Cross Red Crescent global alliance on HIV, said: “We need smart money and not necessarily always more money.

“The rhetoric of good donorship and good partnership must be fully implemented. Tied aid and earmarked aid, which is frequently expensive, short-term and ill-adapted to local needs, must be reduced further.

“Funding for HIV needs to be evidence-based and results-driven. It must reach those who need it more quickly and more fully. Doing any less will continue to cost lives.”

The report noted that HIV is a disaster on many levels. It warned the worst affected countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, where prevalence rates reach 20%, development gains are reversed and life expectancy halved.

“The HIV and Aids epidemic is a disaster whose scale and extent could have been prevented,” said Lindsay Knight, editor of the World Disasters Report.

“Ignorance, stigma, political inaction, indifference and denial all contributed to millions of deaths.

“The report dispels myths about those ’other’ people who spread HIV - refugees, migrants, people escaping from conflict and poverty. We must all do much more to eradicate stigma.”

The World Disasters Report also includes a section on disaster statistics and analysis of global trends and, out of 405 natural disasters reported worldwide last year, 201 million people were affected and 16,679 died.