AIDS to be Key Issue at Earth Summit

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 26, 2002

AIDS to be Key Issue at Earth Summit

HIV/AIDS will be a central issue in the forthcoming Earth Summit, and a considerable of time will be spent discussing the issue, chief organizer of the summit said in Johannesburg Sunday.

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HIV/AIDS will be a central issue in the forthcoming Earth Summit, and a considerable of time will be spent discussing the issue, chief organizer of the summit said in Johannesburg Sunday.

"You can't talk about sustainable development or any other development in a situation where a severe AIDS pandemic is raging because of its impact on social and economic terms," Nitin Desai, who is also UN under-secretary general, told a press conference, adding that the first day of the summit which opens on Monday willfocus on the issue.

The issue of HIV/AIDS is a good example of how sustainable development should be achieved in an integrated way, South AfricanForeign Minister Nkosazana Zuma said.

She said that her government has mapped out a plan to fight against the killer diseases.

"The South African AIDS policy is based on the fact and point of departure that HIV causes AIDS," the minister said.

It was also based on the premise that there was no cure or vaccine for HIV/AIDS, she added.

"The major focus is, just like in business, that one invests where one gets the best returns," she said.

In South Africa the investment was in educating the population on how to best prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, she said.

Another premise of the policy was the fact that people infectedwith the virus had to have access to health services.

"The majority of them die from opportunistic diseases. We must ensure that they have prompt access to treatment for opportunisticdiseases," she noted.

Regarding AIDS-specific treatment, she said that the present prices of anti-retrovirals made it unaffordable for the state to provide free access to these drugs.

Zuma said that during her tenure as health minister, South Africa started piloting legislation to make drugs generally affordable.

The measures, including parallel importation of branded drugs and the provision of generic variants, were contested in court by pharmaceutical companies, but they later withdrew their challenge,she said.

"The developed world fought against us. For them, the profits of pharmaceutical companies were more important than what we wanted to do.

"We stood our ground. Today the pharmaceutical companies realize that we were right", the minister noted.

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