HIV/AIDS has been recognised as having a big impact on development concerns in least developed countries. As such, it is a public health issue that has needed and received worldwide concern and commitments to reduce its rising incidence.

However, years after the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) Declaration of Commitment (DoC) on HIV/AIDS was drafted, the promises and commitments of various concerned organisations—from the United Nations (UN), and the World Health Organisation (WHO), to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), among others—remain unfulfilled.

Meanwhile, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS continues to rise, with five million new cases reported in 2005 alone, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS to 40.3 million. Of this, according to the UNAIDS, 8.3 million are in Asia, with the highest number of sufferers—5 million—in India.

“Asia is the new frontline of the AIDS epidemic,” says UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, who marked World AIDS Day in Indonesia, a country that he identified as being in the early stages of an epidemic together with Vietnam, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.

Not enough attention

Piot said that not enough attention is being given to combat the spread of the virus, even in Western nations. He attributed it to the perception that since the anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) given to HIV sufferers are effective, the epidemic is already under control. This misperception led to new infections in the West.

In Asia, one of the main problems for the lack of attention on HIV/AIDS would be the enormous budget needed to address the issue. Piot said that funding for HIV/AIDS would have to be increased from $8 billion in 2005, to $22 billion in 2008. Political will also plays a major role, as well as cultural and religious factors (e.g., taboo in talking publicly about sex or condom use), that could hamper prevention programmes.

Keeping promises

Piot, however, recognised that the international community needed to be held accountable for their commitments to address the problem of HIV/AIDS. “The speeches are getting better and better…but the action is not always there,” he said.

In 2001, for example, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had already “declared war” against AIDS, and the WTO acknowledged trade inequities and suggested measures in support of public health issues. When the WTO again met in 2003, member countries agreed to invest in social and welfare infrastructure, national efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS (e.g., in education), and debt relief for heavily-burdened countries.

Reducing incidence of HIV/AIDS is also the number 6 item in the then-recently established Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which all 191 UN member states agreed to accomplish by year 2015. However, several years later, concrete gains have yet to be seen.

Apologies

The World Health Organisation had already given its apologies for not meeting the target it set in 2003 to put 3 million people in developing countries on ARVs by end of 2005. According to WHO HIV/AIDS department director Dr. Jim Yong Kim, WHO did not move quickly enough to meet their “3 by 5” target.

He added though, that the strategy was not wholly a failure. Because of it, more HIV sufferers were given the ARVs. More countries had also joined the programme and were provided with access to AIDS drugs as well as given prevention strategies.

Call for accountability

According to the Health & Development Networks (HDN), the underlying message of almost all statements of the UNAIDS, the WHO, the WTO, and other agencies is the confirmation of the increasing problems in addressing HIV/AIDS. Thus, of late, there is a call for accountability, not only from these agencies, but from the governments involved as well, especially the member countries which repeatedly made commitments and promised particular HIV/AIDS outcomes over the past five years.

The HDN predicts that the UN Development Programme will report in 2006 that countries will not achieve the MDGs by 2015, and will confirm that HIV is having a significant negative impact on development in many regions. Thus, they emphasised the need for accountability, spearheaded by the “organised and effective civil society advocacy and campaigning that challenges agencies…seeks specific responses for the apparent lack of action, using previous commitments and promises as its benchmarks.”

Sources:

“Promises, promises…statements, commitments, and declarations on HIV/AIDS since 2001” by Ian Hodgson and Tim France, posted 29 November 2005 at <http://www.worldaidscampaign.info/index.php/wac/wac/advocacy/position_papers/promises_promises>.

“Western nations, Asia must focus on AIDS—UN” by Dean Yates, as posted 29 November 2005 in Reuters AlertNet website at <http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK88094.htm>.

“WHO apologises for missing AIDS treatment target,” as posted 28 November 2005 in Reuters AlertNet website at <http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28723527.htm>.