LONDON,
July 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In spite of promises of
help from rich nations over the past two years, only 30,000 people out
of almost 30 million – 1% - infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan
Africa are being given the drugs they need, U.K. daily newspaper the
Guardian reported Wednesday, July 3.
The
paper reported in an article entitled “Aids drugs scandal: toll
soars”, that 2.2 million people died of AIDS in Africa last year. In
rich countries, where 500,000 people are on anti-retroviral drugs,
25,000 died.
“It
is an enormous scandal,” said Peter Piot, director general of
UNAIDS, the joint U.N. program on HIV/AIDS.
According
to the World Health Organization, 230,000 people in developing
countries are on anti-retroviral drugs to keep HIV in check.
But
half of those are in Latin America - mostly in Brazil, which has used
aggressive tactics against the pharmaceutical companies to obtain the
drugs cheaply, or has manufactured its own copies, the daily said.
“However
you look at it, it is a tiny number on treatment,” said Mohga Smith,
health policy adviser at Oxfam.
“We’re
saying let’s get serious and get our act together and get treatment
to people urgently.”
The
new U.N. report on HIV/AIDS for 2002 released Tuesday, July 2, warns
that the epidemic has hardly begun, and offers shocking evidence of
rising infection and death. “Contrary to expectations, there is no
sign that it is leveling off,” Piot said.
The
latest count in the report suggests 40 million people are living with
HIV. Within the next 20 years 70 million people will die unless
drastic action is taken.
In
Botswana almost 40% of adults are HIV positive. Among pregnant women
HIV prevalence has risen from 38.5% in 1997 to 44.9% in 2001. Among
25- to 29-year-old pregnant women, 55.6% have HIV, the paper said.
It
is a story repeated elsewhere in Africa, and the report reveals steep
rises in HIV infections in central Asia and eastern Europe.
Diagnoses
of HIV infection have been doubling every year in the Russian
federation since 1998, and 83,000 new cases were reported last year.
The real figure is expected to be four times as high.
According
to the paper, a separate report from UNAIDS last week warned that HIV
prevalence in China could rise from 1.5 million to 10 million by 2010
if more prevention and education efforts are not made.
Piot
said promising developments included the engagement of African
political leaders and an increase in funding from the paltry $800m (£523m)
the west gave in 1999. But he added: “I think the rest is all pretty
bad news.”
Britain
is far from immune from the epidemic, which is not only spreading
faster than many feared but has the capacity to change its direction.
Angus
Nicoll, director of the communicable disease surveillance center at
Britain’s public health laboratory service, said there were an
estimated 33,500 people with HIV in Britain, of whom around 9,400 are
undiagnosed.
What
was once largely confined to the homosexual community is now spreading
faster within the heterosexual population.
“There
is no sign that the problem is diminishing - in fact, the truth is
completely the opposite,” Nicoll said.
“There
is strong evidence that unsafe sex is on the increase, with the latest
national survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles showing an increase
in numbers of sexual partners, lower age at first sexual intercourse,
increasing levels of heterosexual anal sex and payment for sex. All of
these are known to be associated with HIV transmission.”
If
there is complacency in Britain and other rich countries it has come
largely from the knowledge that AIDS is no longer a death sentence in
the west, because of the availability of drug treatments, the paper
said.
But
in poor countries, HIV leads inexorably to AIDS, destroying families
and creating 14 million orphans so far, the report says.
The
court victory of the South African government over drug companies two
years ago raised hopes that poor countries would be able to buy
quantities of cheap drugs.
But,
says Médecins sans Frontières, the prices are still too high. At the
international AIDS conference in Barcelona next week, the group will
be calling for the price of a three-drug cocktail - already down from
$1,500 a year to about $300 - to fall to $50.
In
the wake of the South African court case, UNAIDS set up a scheme to
supply discounted drugs to African countries.
The
latest U.N. report reveals that the scheme has so far enabled only
22,000 extra people in 11 countries to get drugs.
Critics
say the discount prices are too high and are only available for a
limited selection of drugs, the paper added.
