Developed countries criticized at International AIDS Conference

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, July 08, 2002

Developed countries criticized at International AIDS Conference

Developed countries should take more actions to prevent AIDS from spreading worldwide and becoming a major health disaster for all mankind, a senior United Nations official said in Barcelona Sunday.

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Developed countries should take more actions to prevent AIDS from spreading worldwide and becoming a major health disaster for all mankind, a senior United Nations official said n Barcelona Sunday.

UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Executive Director Peter Piot criticized politicians from developed countries for failing to pay enough attention to the issue of AIDS and said the current conference on AIDS aimed to urge all governments to honor their commitment in fighting AIDS, rather than renew talks on the commitment by politicians.

The 14th International AIDS Conference opened here Sunday with the theme "Knowledge and Commitment for Action." During the six-day conference 15,000 officials, medical experts and scientists from 170 countries will discuss AIDS prevention, research and treatment and exchange their experiences in combating the deadly disease.

According to figures released by UNAIDS, last year 500,000 AIDS patients received medical treatment in wealthy Western countries,with 25,000 of them dying of the disease, while in Africa, 2.2 million AIDS-related deaths were reported as only 30,000 people could afford to receive treatment.

Piot noted that with the advent of new medicines and therapies, AIDS is no longer incurable and pharmaceutical manufacturers had agreed on drastically cutting the prices of anti-AIDS drugs.

However, he said the efforts by the governments to help AIDS patients are far from enough since it is their responsibilities toenable the maximum number of AIDS patients to gain access to these drugs.

"The major obstacle is lack of political wills, rather than technical problems," he added.

The UN official criticized developed countries for doing little when AIDS swept the African continent, and stressed that such a tragedy "should never be allowed to repeat in other continents."

UNAIDS has warned that with the spread of AIDS in Asia and Eastern Europe, the deadly disease is likely to claim 70 million lives during the next 20 years.

Quoting forecast by some experts, Piot said the worldwide campaign to curb the spread of AIDS needs an annual fund of 10 billion US dollars, which would come mostly from the developed countries. However, only one third of the needed fund has been secured so far, he added.

As indicated by UNAIDS recent statistics, the number of HIV/AIDS carriers has topped 60 million, with 20 million of them already killed by the disease.

The annual conference was launched by the International AIDS Society (IAS) in 1985, but has been held every two years since 1994.

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