Debt cancellation vital to Aids war
2000-10-17 11:58
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Cairo - Aids activists from around the globe
called on rich nations on Monday to cancel the debt of poor
countries ravaged by Aids and substantially increase aid
directed at fighting the virus and improving health care.
"The allocation of resources by the world`s richest
nations, including the United States, as well as
multilateral institutions such as the IMF and World Bank
has been wholly inadequate," said Jeffrey Sachs, a
prominent Harvard economist who delivered the keynote
address at a conference on Aids and health spending.
The fourth annual meeting hosted by the Chicago-based
International Association of Physicians in Aids Care
attracted more than 400 economists, government officials,
doctors, drug manufacturers and aid group representatives.
Sachs called on rich nations to more than double their
annual funding of efforts to fight Aids from $300
million to 400 million to $5 billion to $10 billion.
Other participants pleaded for the cancellation of Third
World debt. They maintained that funds used by developing
nations to pay debt could be employed to drastically
improve health care and fight Aids.
"If we cancel (Third World) debt, the UN predicts we
could save the lives of 19 000 children a day, many of whom
are the victims of Aids," said Adrian Lovett, deputy
director of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition UK, a coalition
fighting for complete debt cancellation by the end of 2000.
Debt cancellation has garnered substantial public support
in the West and was a major theme of protests in Washington
and Prague earlier this year.
"The crisis is changing on an annual basis,; said Jose
Zuniga, IAPAC president and a co-chair of the conference.
"The past year has been good in that the G7, the World
Bank, and the UN have all promised significant increases
in financial support. Now we need to look into what to do
with those resources and how to continue pushing for
more," Zuniga said.
The summit was the first major Aids conference to be held
in the Middle East.
With fewer than 2 000 cases of Aids reported in Egypt,
compared with 4 million in South Africa, Zuniga said it was
important to heighten Aids awareness because "we still
have an opportunity to influence the development of the
disease."
Aids cases reported in North Africa and the Middle East
are relatively low - 220 000 out of more than 40 million
worldwide - but activists have accused regional governments
of playing down the disease. In conservative Islamic
countries such as Egypt, public dialogue about sexuality
and Aids is generally considered taboo.
However, Zuniga said that Egypt had welcomed the
conference with "open arms" and Egyptian Health Minister
Ismail Sallam told the delegates that Egypt was committed
to Aids prevention and public education.
- AP