Minister, Distinguished Delegates,
I am very pleased to join you today on behalf of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program that brings together in a focus on AIDS our eight co-sponsoring organizations—the International Labor Organization was officially signed on as our most recent co-sponsor, less than two weeks ago. [TONE]//[TONE]
The HIV epidemic around the globe is continuing to grow—every day, the world sees 15,000 new HIV infections and 8,000 deaths as a result of AIDS. Month by month, AIDS spreads even further. At the beginning of October, a new report was issued by the collaborative group, known as "Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic". This report on trends in the epidemic in Asia and the Pacific noted that in Indonesia, for example, HIV is beginning to emerge strongly where for many years it has been absent. [TONE]∥[TONE]
Across Asia, they concluded, the epidemic is spreading both among populations with the highest risk of exposure and the population at large. In three Asian countries—Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, more than 2 per cent of the total adult population is HIV infected. Across the whole of the region, at least 7 million people are living with HIV. [TONE]∥[TONE]
This report shows that looking only at overall national HIV prevalence can give a misleading impression. In countries with large populations—like Indonesia, India or China—millions of people are affected and prevalence in some groups is high. In India, for example, HIV has moved beyond sex workers, injecting drug users and men who have sex with men. India now has nearly four million people living with HIV, and in three states, testing among pregnant women has shown HIV rates above three per cent. [TONE]∥[TONE]
Across the world, 60 million people have been infected with HIV since the epidemic began. Sub- Saharan Africa has been worst affected with seven countries where more than 20% of adults are infected. If we translate these statistics into everyday life, they mean that in these countries today, a 15 year-old faces a 50% risk that they will be infected over their lifetime. They mean that even a relatively wealthy country like South Africa, by the end of the decade is facing a GDP reduced by 17 per cent as a result of AIDS. [TONE]∥[TONE]
Over the past few years, Eastern Europe has seen the fastest rate of HIV growth. For example, the Russian Federation shows the explosive growth of an epidemic fuelled by injecting drug—in a single year in 2000, there were more new HIV infections than in all the previous years of the epidemic combined, and the same rate of growth has continued in 2001. [TONE]∥[TONE]
Cities where HIV was unknown two years ago have reported that now the majority of injecting drug users have become infected, and infections are spreading to their sexual partners and wider. Nearly every region now reports HIV cases. [TONE]∥[TONE]
AIDS is not only a global epidemic of an infectious disease, it is a development issue and at the core of human security. Only by working together with strong determination can we ensure the prosperity of the entire population. [TONE]∥[TONE]