WORLD AIDS DAY: How Many Millions More Will Die?


By Haider Rizvi, Independent Press Service

Millions of people living with HIV/AIDS in poor parts of the world could lose their lives in the next few years if governments fail to keep their promises to fight the deadly pandemic, warn U.N. officials and health advocacy groups.


In the absence of treatment, as many as 74 million people could die from HIV/AIDS-related causes by 2015, according to the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO), which notes that young workers are the ones who are most at risk.

Though acknowledging that the international community has made some progress in the past few years, U.N. officials and independent groups say governments must do more to combat HIV/AIDS.

“The world has made considerable promises,” said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the eve of World AIDS Day, Dec. 1. “The time has come to keep them.”

There are more than 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS today, according to the United Nations. The disease has already claimed some 25 million lives.

Though HIV/AIDS cases have been reported in all parts of the world, studies show that most people living with the disease reside in low-and-middle-income countries, where most new HIV infections and deaths are occurring. Among them, sub-Saharan Africa has been hardest-hit, and is home to nearly 26 million people living with HIV/AIDS.

In South and Southeast Asia, there are more than seven million people suffering from HIV/AIDS. In Latin America, the number of patients is estimated to be around two million, and almost the same number of people are infected in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Research shows that in developing countries, it is working class people who are disproportionately threatened by death from HIV/AIDS.

“Nearly 90 percent of AIDS-related fatalities occur among people of working age, making it the leading cause of death worldwide for people between the age of 15 and 49,” according to the Worldwatch Institute, an independent think-tank based in Washington.

The group estimates that due to HIV/AIDS, Africa loses at least 10 percent of its working age adults every five years. By contrast, industrial countries lose about 1 percent of this age group to all deaths in the same period of time.

Last September, while attending a major U.N. summit on development, world leaders pledged to implement the Declaration of Commitments they had adopted in 2001, by intensifying efforts for prevention, treatment, care and support.

But those campaigning for international action against AIDS doubt if governments will take their promises seriously. “The U.S. has created an artificial condom shortage in Uganda; it refuses to fund comprehensive sex education for youth; and it gags comprehensive family planning services and simultaneously undermines efforts to work with sex workers by requiring an anti-prostitution oath by service providers,” said Sharonann Lynch of Health GAP.

“We have been asked to stomach year after year of rhetorical statements disguised as commitments on AIDS,” says Marcel Van Soest, executive director of the World AIDS Campaign based in Europe.

“The litany of broken promises now rings hollow against unrelenting advance of the epidemic throughout the world,” he adds.

In a new report titled “Promises, Promises... But How Many Get Delivered,” the group notes that many declarations on AIDS have been seen as “commitments and promises”, but simply restate the current understanding of the epidemic and avoid committing to concrete deliveries.

Halting and reversing HIV/AIDS by 2015 is also one of the Millennium Development Goals world leaders had agreed on at a major U.N. summit held in New York in 2000.

Posted: Mon - December 5, 2005 at 02:36 PM          

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