UN General Assembly meets on global response to AIDS

UNITED NATIONS, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The UN General Assembly convened on Tuesday a plenary session to assess the world's progress in the fight against AIDS, with top UN officials calling on member states to ensure adequate funding to tackle the global epidemic.

Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto told delegates that financial resources for HIV increased in 2008 and there is continuing progress in bringing HIV treatments to patients, including women and children.

But, more needs to be done before the world can meet its promise made in 2006, when the General Assembly pledged to achieve universal access to comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010, he said.

Latest statistics show that there are 29 million people who need care, support, prevention measures and HIV treatment worldwide that still lack these medications; roughly two out of three HIV-positive pregnant women do not receive services to prevent mother-to-child transmission; and the pace of the new HIV infections is occurring faster than the rate at which we are expanding treatment access.

In Africa alone, there are 22 million people living with HIV and in 2007, three out of four AIDS deaths world-wide occurred in this region.

People living with HIV/AIDs have been placed at greater risk as a result of the global financial and economic crisis that is crippling economies around the world, the assembly president said.

"As a result of this ongoing crisis, I fear that many governments are resigned to reducing program and diminished expectations," he said. "Inevitably, people are questioning the feasibility of visionary global aims during a time of economic crisis."

The recently declared H1N1 pandemic adds a new level of complexity and further tests our collective will, he noted.

"But it is precisely when times are difficult that our true values and the sincerity of our commitment are most clearly evident," he said.

"Even as we see signs of cutbacks in AIDS funding in many countries, we must remind governments and the international community that the world has the resources to mount the kind of AIDS response to which we have committed," he said.