The United Nations General Assembly started a three-day
high-level meeting Wednesday with calls for greater unity, stronger
political commitment and strengthened efforts to ensure success in
the global fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In his opening remarks, General Assembly President Jan Eliasson
said the gathering is "no ordinary meeting" and all the 191 UN
member states will take this opportunity to review their collective
response to AIDS since the assembly's 2001 special session on the
epidemic.
The 2001 special event, the first of its kind, adopted a
landmark declaration which laid out a series of time-bound targets,
including a substantial reduction of the AIDS prevalence rates
among young people by 2010.
"All of us will be deciding what new commitments we need to make
to ensure that 2006 goes down in history as the moment when the
world set about turning the tide of this pandemic once and for
all," Eliasson noted.
The Swedish foreign minister urged all participants to work
together as partners for the most concrete and powerful outcome
possible from the meeting.
"We need a response commensurate to the threat we face. We know
what needs to be done, and we have the tools to do it," he said.
"This week, we must make the necessary commitments to strengthen
and deliver the response we promised."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who took the floor after
Eliasson, noted that over the last 25 years, AIDS has spread
further, faster and with more catastrophic long-term effects than
any other disease.
"We must apply the main lesson of the past 25 years: namely,
that it is only when we work together with determination and unity
of purpose that we can win against the disease," he said.
He added that such efforts require visionary leadership and
unprecedented partnership, among governments, the private sector
and civil society.
Annan expected that this meeting will chart the way forward,
saying that "it must set us firmly on course towards getting us as
close as possible to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment,
care and support by 2010 -- the goal that you committed yourselves
to at the World Summit last September."
"It must move us decisively towards our destination -- the
Millennium Development Goal of halting, and beginning to reverse
the spread of HIV and AIDS among women, men and children by
2015,"he added.
Following Annan's remarks, Kehnsami Mavasa of South Africa
became the first person living with HIV to address the general
assembly as she urged delegates to adopt a final declaration with
real meaning.
"Your big task now is making sure that this ... is not a
document of empty promises, not a mere restatement of principle,
but a target for platform-based action," she said. "I ask that as
you deliberate over the next two days, you'll be guided by the pain
and hope which sits in our hearts as people of the world."
The meeting brought together more than a dozen heads of state
and government, over 100 ministers and nearly 1,000 representatives
of civil society and the private sector. It is composed of plenary
sessions as well as round table and panel discussions.
Besides reviewing the progress in the fight against AIDS, the
participants will also consider recommendations on how the targets
in the 2001 declaration can be reached and renew political
commitment. At the end of the meeting, a new political declaration
will be adopted. Currently, the 191-nation General Assembly is
negotiating the contents of the document.
A biennial report released Tuesday by UNAIDS, the UN agency
coordinating the fight against the disease, showed that the
incidence of new HIV infections appeared to have stabilized for the
first time after reaching the peaks in the late 1990s.
But the report also pointed out that in general, the epidemic
continues to outpace the response. "While some countries have
reached key targets and milestones for 2005, many countries have
failed to fulfill the pledges specified in the (2001)
declaration."
According to the report, the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, has
infected 65 million people since 1981 when the disease was first
recognized. Of them, more than 25 million people have died.
(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2006)
