Aids is like Armageddon - WHO
2003-08-05 13:59
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Helsinki - As South Africa defended its policy of denying Aids drugs to its population at a conference on the disease in Durban, the head of the UN's World Health Organisation said the government's strategy was wrong.
Lee Jong-wook also compared the worldwide Aids crisis to "Armageddon", and said a massive increase in efforts to combat the pandemic was needed, especially for Africa.
"In the African continent it would be wrong to talk about prevention, voluntarily counseling and testing, when people are actually dying.
"You have to provide treatment as well as prevention," said Lee on Tuesday. He took over last month as head of the Geneva-based agency.
South Africa has one of the highest Aids rates in the world, with the UNAids agency estimating 360 000 deaths in 2001 - an average of nearly 1 000 a day.
The government has come in for heavy criticism for failing to adopt a national treatment plan for people with HIV/Aids, choosing instead to focus on "nutritious diets" as a way to fight the disease for those infected.
Lee said this was inadequate to deal with a pandemic he decribed as "a global security issue".
Nearly 50 million infected
"It's almost like Armageddon, equivalent to something realy big hitting the planet," he said on the sidelines of an international anti-tobacco conference in Helsinki.
He pledged that the WHO would step up its battle against HIV and Aids, mobilising all available resources.
Nearly 50 million people are infected with HIV/Aids worldwide, with 27 million carriers of the virus on the African continent alone, he said.
"They are staggering numbers. We have to scale up the disease control in a major, major way," he said.
The average life expectancy in many African countries has declined to 45 or 46 years and, for the first time, global population growth has been stopped because of the pandemic, he said.
"Losing this battle is not an option," Lee said.
Yet he said HIV/Aids was, wrongly, no longer treated as a major international issue, despite the death toll in the developing world still being in the millions.
'We have to make real drugs available'
"It's difficult because nowadays, we don't talk about Aids in Europe and North America, because as long as you take medicine you can stay alive and lead almost a normal life," he noted.
But the availability of drugs was a huge problem in poorer countries.
"We have to make drugs, real drugs, available to people in the needy countries," he said.
In this, it was necessary to co-operate with the big pharmaceutical companies.
One had to avoid hurting their interests because any reluctance to develop new drugs would damage the fight in the long-term, he said.
"We have to count on the research-based pharmaceutical industry to develop new antiretroviral drugs.
"So, we have to really encourage them to continuously develop new medicines and, at the same time, vaccines.
"In Europe you really have to emphasise on prevention, because those who need treatment are getting their medicines.
"So, here you really have to talk about prevention to the young population."
Have to act quickly and openly
While the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) was now under control, Lee cautioned any premature conclusion that the fight against the virus had been won.
We "have to be prepared if it comes back", he said.
He also criticised China's initial reaction to hide the scale of the Sars outbreak there, but hailed Beijing's later turnaround, when it openly acknowledged its magnitude and seriousness.
"Clearly the big lesson is that when we have this kind of problem, we have to act very quickly and openly, in a transparent way.
"That's the only way to solve the problem. Hiding it under the rug is not the solution," he noted.
The Helsinki anti-tobacco conference follows the acceptance of the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) by its 192 member countries in May, but Lee said the battle against the tobacco industry had only just begun.
"The implementation of the FTCT is a very daunting task, people should not underestimate the challenges," he noted.
"The implementation at the country level requires sustained input, which means will, and also resources.
"This will not be finished in five or 10 years, but more like 10 to 20 years."
He had no doubt the WHO and the anti-tobacco activists would win the battle on tobacco in the end "because we are right."
- AFP