Red Cross Partners Participate in AIDS Conference

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 13 Jul 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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More than 80 Red Cross and Red Crescent representatives joined 20,000 delegates from 160 countries at the 15th International AIDS Conference being held in Bangkok this week. Organized by the International AIDS Society (IAS) and numerous health and humanitarian partners, one of the conference's main tasks is to help the World Health Organization (WHO) reach the objectives of its "3 by 5 Initiatives" - to provide antiretroviral treatment (ART) to three million people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by the end of 2005.

Currently, there are over six million people in poor countries living with HIV/AIDS, but only 400,000 have access to retroviral drugs. Additionally, more than 25 million of the 38 million infected with HIV worldwide are in sub-Saharan Africa, with the virus spreading rampantly in Asia, where 7.6 million are now infected.

Volunteers play a critical role in reaching out to grassroots communities to provide millions of impoverished people with antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS, and according to Mamdouh Gabr, Vice President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), local Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers can provide a doorway into otherwise inaccessible areas.

"Our unique contribution to '3 by 5' is community mobilization and our unparalleled access to households," said IFRC VicePresident Dr Mamdouh Gabr. "Our volunteer base is increasingly regarded as an essential component of the broad public health system that increases awareness, enables people to come forward for testing and receive ongoing care."

The conference theme is "Access for All" and aims to advance the global response for HIV/AIDS. The theme urges all sectors of society to have access to all resources that have been developed throughout the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS. For those infected with the virus, it means access to "education, information and medication" and calls on people who have "access to policies" to lend support and care.

In his opening speech, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that despite some progress, the world is not on track to reduce the scale and impact of the AIDS epidemic by 2005. He also emphasized the pivotal role that women and girls play in curbing the spread of the virus.

The UN chief said empowering women and girls with the education, legal rights and economic power to protect themselves against the virus was vital. In what he called a "terrifying pattern," Annan said women accounted for nearly half of all adult infections. In sub-Saharan Africa that figure was up to 58 percent.

"Yet one third of all countries still have no policies to ensure that women have access to prevention and care," he said, adding that poverty, violence and abuse put women at risk of HIV. "This can only be prevented by empowering women and girls to protect themselves against the virus. In other words, what is needed is the education of girls."

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