€4.9bn campaign launched to fight Aids

Two UN agencies are launching a €4.9bn campaign to provide three million HIV-infected people in poor countries with the latest drugs available by the end of 2005.

The detailed plan focuses on simplifying the delivery of anti-retroviral therapy, ensuring a reliable source for the drugs, and creating a system for disseminating the latest information on HIV, the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS announced in Nairobi today, World AIDS Day.

“Preventing and treating AIDS may be the toughest health assignment the world has ever faced, but it is also the most urgent,” Dr Lee Jong-wook, the director-general of WHO, said in the statement.

“The lives of millions of people are at stake. This strategy demands massive and unconventional efforts to make sure they stay alive.”

Reaching the goal of treating three million patients with anti-retroviral drugs by 2005 will cost about €4.9bn over the next two years, WHO said. Lee said the funds must be raised from all sources, including the poor countries hardest hit by the disease.

More than 40 million people are infected with HIV and more than three million have died in 2003, UNAIDS reported last week. WHO estimates more than five million HIV patients need anti-retroviral drugs, but fewer than 400,000 currently have access to them.

Anti-retroviral drug combinations, often called triple-therapy cocktails, allow HIV patients to live a relatively normal life by preventing them from developing full-blown AIDS. While the drugs improve the health of patients, they are still infected with the virus and can transmit the disease.

High prices have kept the drugs out of reach of most patients, but recent initiatives have made the drugs more affordable. The WHO and UNAIDS initiative, dubbed 3x5, will improve drug distribution channels and train health professionals in poor countries.

Candlelight vigils, educational seminars and torchlight parades were planned around the globe today, while a US delegation headed for Africa to urge its leaders to increase awareness about the deadly virus.

Athletes were also getting into the spirit: The International Cricket Council said that players from Pakistan, New Zealand, West Indies, Zimbabwe, England and Sri Lanka would wear red ribbons during matches today to show their support for Aids victims.

UNAIDS said the epidemic was rampant in sub-Saharan Africa and that a new wave of the disease was threatening China, Indonesia and Russia because of transmissions through drug use and unsafe sex.

To try to raise awareness on the African continent, an 80-member US delegation headed by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson started a tour of sub-Saharan Africa to assess projects and determine what needs to be done to increase treatment and prevent the spread of the virus.

Across Europe, candlelight vigils, concerts, seminars and parades were planned to increase awareness about Aids, educate people about how to prevent its transmission, and express solidarity with those suffering from it.

In Lisbon, activists gathered in the centre of the city wearing white masks, and celebrities spoke about Aids and sexually transmitted diseases. In Turkey, several workshops and panels were planned for the week, along with concerts, a festival and parade.

Pope John Paul offered a special prayer for AIDS victims and their caregivers.

“While I pray for those who are hit by this scourge, I encourage those in the Church who carry out an invaluable service of acceptance, care and spiritual accompaniment to our brothers and sisters,” John Paul said in St Peter’s Square.

In China, health workers took to the streets of Beijing to launch an aggressive fight against the disease. State-run newspapers were filled with articles on Aids, and the government’s national midday newscast highlighted the event.

A new survey by the Health Ministry, said 840,000 people in China were HIV-positive and 80,000 had developed Aids.

Health workers in Beijing fanned out to construction sites and schools to teach Aids-prevention methods and combat the stigma of the illness.