Speaking to around 15,000 participants at the opening of the International Conference on AIDS in Barcelona, Peter Piot, the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said on Sunday evening that AIDS is now a global political issue. This status was reflected in the personal involvement of Kofi Annan and of 30 Presidents or other senior Government leaders who have taken direct comand of their national AIDS responses. He reported a sixfold increase in spending on AIDS in developing countries since 1998. However, this was still "just a beginning".
"Are we ready to meet the challenge?" asked Dr Piot. "To fight AIDS on the political stage - where struggles over power and resources are fought. The promises have been made. Now, they need to be kept."
The UN General Assembly Declaration of Commitment has set targets, some of them to be met as early as 2003. However, in his speech, Peter Piot went beyond these commitments and targets, observing that "Antiretroviral treatment has slashed mortality in the rich countries. Brazil has shown it can be done elsewhere."
So, he asked, "Why are only 30,000 Africans getting antiretroviral treatment, when a hundred times that number need it?"
"Why are three-quarters of a million babies born with HIV a year, when it is eminently preventable?"
"The answers are about power and priorities. So let us be clear about ours. Prevention and care are complementary not competing. Prevention secures the future. Treatment saves lives and money immediately. No nation would refuse to fight an invading army because some expert argued it would be cheaper to invest in defences against future invasions. So too with AIDS. It is not a matter of prioritizing lives now over lives tomorrow... the quality of future lives depends on the quality of life today."
"Treatment is technically feasible in every part of the world. Even the lack of infrastructure is not an excuse - I don´t know a single place in the world where the real reason AIDS treatment is unavailable is that the health infrastructure has exhausted its capacity to deliver it. It´s not knowledge that´s the barrier. It´s political will."
"Ten billion dollars annually - or ten billion euros annually - is all it will take for a minimum credible response to the epidemic. It is three times more than is available today. Every funder - governments, business, citizens and the new Global Fund need to get behind this target and start raising their share."
"We did not come to Barcelona to renegotiate promises. We are here to ignite leadership, to keep the promise. We must make an uncompromising attack on stigma - that´s not negotiable. We must strengthen the alliance that will deliver an HIV vaccine - that´s not negotiable. We must deliver both prevention and treatment at full scale - that´s not negotiable. We must find 10 billion dollars - that´s not negotiable."
"Whenever and wherever we´ve succeeded against AIDS, it has been by challenging power and turning conventional wisdom on its head. Now is the time for our movement to turn up the heat, roll up our sleeves and deliver for our constituencies. That´s our promise. That´s the promise we´ll keep. That´s not negotiable."