| The AIDS pandemic is one of the greatest public health crises in history. Over 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS. The scientific knowledge and tools to prevent new HIV infections and prolong life among those living with HIV/AIDS already exist, even in the poorest settings. The greatest challenge is garnering the resources and the collective will to translate that knowledge and experience into broadly available HIV treatment and prevention programs.
This year alone, more than five million people will be infected. Ninety-five per cent of these people live in the developing world. Only 1.3 million people worldwide have access to anti-retroviral medicines, despite the World Health Organization (WHO) goal to have three million in developing countries on anti-retroviral treatment by the end of 2005 and despite WHO estimates that 6.5 million people need them right now. Without these medicines, the rest will die. These deaths are preventable and unnecessary.
The AIDS pandemic is rolling back development gains in many countries and undermining their capacity to meet the needs of their people. The pandemic is fuelled by and perpetuates stigma, discrimination and the denial of human rights, particularly for women and girls. Gender inequality puts women and girls at greater risk of contracting HIV and also hinders their access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.
At the G8 Summit in July 2005, the leaders of the richest industrialized nations, including Canada, pledged to develop and implement a comprehensive response to AIDS with the goal of achieving universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment by 2010. Sustained action will be required to deliver on this promise.
As the host of the 2006 International AIDS Conference held in Toronto in August, Canada must show leadership. The conference theme for AIDS 2006 was Time to Deliver, underscoring the continued urgency, 25 years after the discovery of AIDS, in bringing effective HIV prevention and treatment strategies to communities around the world. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s in-absentia display of lack of commitment, leadership and understanding of the global HIV/AIDS crisis prompted puzzlement, disappointment and disgust from conference delegates.
Despite biotech advances, the world is billions of dollars away from universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment. By the year 2010, $25 billion is needed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in order to make meaningful impacts in HIV prevention and treatment. This is a paltry amount, however, compared to the approximately $8.1 billion per month spent by the U.S. in its occupation of Iraq. Clearly, the lack of funding for HIV/AIDS is a question of priorities.
The Global Treatment Access Group (GTAG) is a working group of international development, human rights, humanitarian and AIDS service organizations, trade unions and faith-based groups seeking to improve access to essential medicines and other aspects of HIV prevention and care, treatment and support for people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries. GTAG has launched a platform with four key recommendations on what Canada should do to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and to do its fair share in addressing the global pandemic.
WHAT CANADIANS CAN DO
·Pay our fair share. Pressure the Canadian government to help cover the cost of HIV prevention, care, treatment and support programs to address HIV/AIDS internationally. Call on the Canadian government to increase funding for vaccines and microbicides research, contribute five per cent of the resource requirements for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and set out a clear timetable for raising Canada’s development assistance to the long-promised target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income.
·Invest in public health care systems. An essential prerequisite for improving health and fighting disease is a functioning public, not-for-profit health care system. Crumbling infrastructures, chronic under-financing, workforce attrition and migration of health care workers have eroded health systems in many developing countries, even as the burden of disease has increased. The lack of trained health care workers, due in part to recruitment by rich countries including Canada, is undermining developing countries’ capacity to prevent infection and to treat and care for their people. Call on provincial governments, universities, health care institutions, associations of health professionals and health worker unions to invest in training and retention of personnel in Canada and to discourage active recruitment of health professionals from developing countries.
·Cancel the debt. On average, African governments’ debt service spending is three times per capita that of health care spending. We call on the Canadian government to promote the immediate, unconditional cancellation of 100 per cent of the debt owed by countries burdened by AIDS, debt and poverty.
·Make medicines affordable. The price of patented medicines is a major obstacle to achieving universal treatment. In 2004, Parliament unanimously passed the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa Act to help developing countries obtain more affordable generic medicines from Canadian manufacturers. Though the law came into effect in May 2005, not a single generic drug has yet left Canada as a result. Disincentives built into the legislation have discouraged Canadian generic companies and developing countries from using the law. Call on generic drug manufacturers and the federal government to put the legislation into action.
World AIDS Day, December 1, is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Make AIDS 2006 a personal catalyst for change. In your everyday life, make social justice issues a priority to reduce the factors that contribute to HIV: poverty, marginalization, stigma, gender inequities and homophobia.
San Patten works as an HIV research and evaluation consultant, is a board member of the Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development and was Co-Chair of Track C (Epidemiology and Prevention) for AIDS 2006. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.