Effect Of Hiv/Aids On Population And Development Focus Of UN Commission's Annual Session
The United Nations Commission on Population and Development kicked off its weeklong annual session today with top UN
officials stressing the effects of HIV/AIDS on population dynamics, including population losses and decreased life
expectancy, as well as the pandemic's links to increased extreme poverty, stalled economic growth and poor reproductive
health in many parts of the world.
Spotlighting the Commission's special focus this year on population, development and HIV/AIDS, with particular emphasis
on poverty, Jose Antonio Ocampo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, opened the session reflecting
on the dramatic scope of the deadly disease, which kills over 3 million people a year.
"Since the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS in 2001, the epidemic continues to expand,
with both rich and poor countries being affected," he said, stressing, however, that the hardest-hit countries are among
the poorest in the world. Currently, over 40 million people are living with HIV, at least 25 million of them in
sub-Saharan Africa. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halting or reversing the spread of HIV was crucial for the
development prospects of many countries.
Fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS demanded constant vigilance and sustained effort, he continued. Effective prevention
programmes to reduce mother-to-child transmission, for instance, were still far from being universal and more also had
to be done to expand access to anti-retroviral treatment. Full implementation of the action plan adopted by the 1994
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) could seriously contribute to helping reduce the spread of
the disease, particularly by ensuring that people got the information and means to protect themselves against contagion,
he added.
Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), said that for international strategies to be more
effective, it was necessary to ensure that HIV/AIDS and reproductive health and family planning were linked, as
appropriate. That would allow women at the community level to benefit directly from such services, and the services
would be more efficient in reaching the vulnerable group of women and young people. That needed to be reflected in
national plans and budgets, including health-sector reforms and poverty-reduction strategies.
HIV prevention required availability and accessibility of condoms, as part of the comprehensive approach adopted by the
2001 special session on HIV/AIDS, Ms. Obaid said. It was important to reach the vulnerable groups with information and
services that addressed the realities they faced.
"We must confront the poverty, human rights violations and gender inequalities that drive the epidemic among women. By
doing so, we will enable women and girls to protect their health, and that of their families and communities," she said.
The Director of the UN Population Division, Hannah Zlotnick, said about 45 out of every 100 young people in the
developing world today lived in countries that were already highly affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Even if all new infections could be prevented as of today, the expected toll of the disease would hardly change over the
next decade because of the large number of persons already infected, she added. It was, therefore, more important than
ever that international solidarity be brought to bear in addressing that ongoing human tragedy. In that context, the
deliberations of the Commission in the coming days could make an important contribution by reaffirming such solidarity
and mapping the way forward.