| |
Contributions from
the Column
Studies and reports
Not enough drugs
Measuring aid impacts
Caused by ill-conceived political decisions
Preventive strikes ‘yes’, unilateral action ‘no’
Half the world’s workers
living below poverty line
01/2005 |
|
[ AIDS ]
Not enough drugs
The number of people infected with HIV/AIDS has increased this year by almost five million to nearly forty million people. According to figures from UNAIDS, the United Nations organisation to combat HIV/AIDS, the greatest increases were in East Asia, with 56 percent, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with 48 percent. On presenting the UNAIDS 2004 Report in Geneva at the end of November, UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot, said that the time for quick fixes and emergency solutions in the fight against AIDS is over. “We have to balance the emergency nature of the crisis with the need for sustainable solutions,” he said.
UNAIDS figures show that, globally, the proportion of women infected with HIV is still on the rise. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is already almost 60 percent, and even more than 70 percent among 15-24 year olds. UNAIDS points out that, for biological reasons, it is twice as likely that a man will infect a woman as vice versa. Furthermore, women are also at greater risk for socio-economic reasons, as they are often forced to work as prostitutes. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that the “catastrophe can only be confronted if we empower women and girls.”
The UNAIDS Report makes it clear that there is not one single epidemic in Africa, but several ones of varying intensities. While the infection rate in southern Africa has continued to increase and is now more than 25 percent, UNAIDS says that there has been a fair amount of success in combating the epidemic in Eastern Africa. In the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the infection rate has dropped from 24 percent in the mid 1990s to 11 percent, and in Kenya it has dropped nationwide from 13.6 percent to 9.4 percent.
According to UNAIDS figures, global spending to combat AIDS has almost tripled since 2001, from USD 2.1 billion to USD 6 billion. This amount includes public funds and private donations. At a conference at the end of November in Berlin, Christoph Benn from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, pointed out that an increasing amount of money is going towards the treatment of AIDS patients with antiretroviral drugs. The Fund was founded in 2002 and, in its first two years, most funds were put towards prevention. Benn says that this has changed with the WHO/UNAIDS 3 by 5 Initiative. Launched at the end of 2003, the goal of the initiative is to provide antiretroviral treatment for three million people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005.
There is still a long way to go before this is achieved. UNAIDS says that nearly half a million AIDS patients are currently receiving treatment. This is admittedly more than twice as many as two years ago, but still less than 10 percent of those infected with the HIV virus who urgently need treatment. In Berlin, Tido Schön-Angerer from the organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders questioned the 3 by 5 Initiative. In his view, long-term funding of the Global Fund is by no means certain. He commented also that the US policy of supporting its own pharmaceutical industry but obstructing the manufacturers of generic AIDS drugs makes it even more difficult to increase the supply of cheap drugs. Meantime, the German Development Ministry has announced that it will double Germany’s contribution to the Global Fund in 2005, taking it to Euro 82 million. (See also pages 5 and 6 of this edition.)
Tillmann Elliesen / Annette Hornung
Website:
http://www.unaids.org
|
