HIV/AIDS: Commonwealth Urged to Declare Health Emergency
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Source: http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/unwire.cfm#6
Health ministers from Commonwealth countries are expected to ask
their heads of government meeting in Durban this weekend to declare a
global state of emergency on HIV/AIDS, reported the Panafrican News
Agency. A communique to be presented at the meeting says that despite
existing methods of prevention to control the pandemic, morbidity and
mortality from HIV/AIDS continue to rise in the Commonwealth's devel-
oping countries (Panafrican News Agency, 10 Nov).
"By calling it a state of emergency, that implies that more has to be
done, and quickly, because if resources are not put into combating
AIDS, then the situation is going to get much worse," said the
Commonwealth Medical Association Director Marianne Haslegrave.
CMA said Monday it would also lobby leaders of Britain and its former
colonies to give greater priority to research into developing a vac-
cine that would be affordable and suitable for developing countries.
AIDS experts and activists recently criticized African leaders in
particular for staying "aloof" from efforts to stem the spread of
HIV, which has hit the world's poorest continent the hardest.
Every day, 16,000 more people are infected, the majority in sub-
Saharan Africa. Last year, 2.5 million people died from AIDS-related
illnesses. According to the US Census Bureau's 1998 World Population
Profile, AIDS has cut life expectancy from 65 years to less than 40
in several Commonwealth countries in southern Africa, including Bot-
swana, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Reuters/CNN Interactive, 8 Nov).
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