EU AIDS conference to focus on Europe, central Asia epidemic

DUBLIN (AFP) Feb 22, 2004
Ireland, the current holder of the European Union presidency, opens a two-day conference on Monday focused on halting the spread of AIDS in Europe and central Asia, where more than two million people are infected with the incurable disease.

The majority of the world's 40 million AIDS sufferers live in the developing world -- 75 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa -- but organizers warned that infection rates were rapidly rising in the region grouping Europe and the former Soviet central Asian republics.

HIV and AIDS levels now "pose an immediate and significant challenge for governments" in the region and constitute the "biggest single obstacle to reducing poverty", the EU presidency said in a statement.

The two-day ministerial conference will be opened by Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and include UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot, World Health Organization head Lee Jong-Wook and Carol Bellamy, director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio and European Parliament speaker Pat Cox are also due to attend, along with other central Asian and European ministers.

"Breaking the barriers: partnership to fight AIDS/HIV in Europe and central Asia" is part of a concerted strategy to battle the pandemic through regional efforts instead of relying on UN international or national action alone.

Europe and the former Soviet republics are experiencing one of the fastest growing epidemics in the world, which has hit people under 30 and is linked directly to intravenous drug use and unsafe sex.

The countries with the highest AIDS infection rate, according to a background paper released by the Irish EU presidency, were the Russian Federation -- with an estimated one million infected -- Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia.

A report released last Tuesday by the UN Development Program (UNDP) found that the countries most affected were Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia.

It said that there, as well as in Estonia, infection rates had reached one percent of the adult population, adding that "it is too late to speak of avoiding a crisis in eastern Europe and the CIS (former Soviet Asian republics)."

The EU AIDS conference is expected to push for regional prevention programs and EU initiatives.

Several ambitious objectives, still to be debated and validated during the conference, have been laid out:

-- eliminate HIV infection among infants in the region by 2010;

-- work toward expanding antiretroviral treatments into central Asia and poorer European countries;

-- offer drug treatment and HIV-prevention programs to addicts;

-- make condoms widely available and offer safe-sex education to youth.

TERRA.WIRE