Indice

From	"emmacosse" <emmacos@csi.com>
Date	Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:44:01 +0200
Subject	globe_l: Lusaka : 15 years of AIDS fight just for nothing!

Press Release - 17/09/99

Lusaka : 15 years of AIDS fight just for nothing!

Lusaka's international conference on AIDS in Africa will at least have
permitted to let people know without ambiguity that the AIDS epidemic is a
worldwide sanitary catastrophe; an epidemic which takes alarming
proportions, kills millions of people, jeopardizes the economies and the
development of the countries.
Nevertheless, apart from its scandalous, inconsistent and unrelevant
programme, this conference will have been totally deserted by the
politicians.
After Jacques Chirac's bombastic speech end of 97 in Abidjan, France
contents itself with a derisory $5million contribution for the reduction of
mother-to-child transmission and access to ARV in Southern countries. The
European Union, the first sponsor in the AIDS fight, sends in Lusaka a
puppet representative who flings, at the opening plenary, a shameful speech
10 years outdated. When adressed by Act Up-Paris, she just proves totally
ignorant about the realities of AIDS. The World Bank, at last aware of the
disaster, imposes its leadership in the AIDS fight, but forgets that,
before being an development problem, AIDS is a disease needing medical
care.

The international community has been ignoring the gravity of the situation
for 15 years and refuses to take necessary measures. It lets the epidemic
spread for savings' sake, wastes its time to promote policies limited to
prevention, deliberately forgetting that if prevention can be efficient in
the North it is because it is articulated with access to health care for
people living with AIDS. Today, the acknowledgment of failure is clear for
prevention in the most affected countries because AIDS remains a taboo, a
fatality; because nothing is really proposed to contaminated people but to
learn how to live positively waiting for death.

In this context, UNAIDS makes the statement that most infected people know
nothing of their serologic status. What a surprise! Not only is testing out
of reach in most countries but also it is obvious that nobody wants to know
about their status if seropositivity just means "give up hope". And there
is no health care or so little in most poor countries. Such a cheap
treatment as Bactrim ($3 a month in generic), a very efficient antibiotic
for the opportunistic infections that so often lead to death, has never
benefited from any national or international campaign and is unavailable in
many countries.

The World Bank and UNAIDS have said it again : a mass political
mobilisation is indispensable. But the targets that the states and the
sponsors must set themselves must be clear. It is not possible to fight
against AIDS is access to health care is set aside. And it is exactly what
happened at Lusaka's conference : access to health care was deliberately
ignored leaving the place to a scandalous speech lauding abstinence, moral
order, traditional cares and sending the fight against AIDS back 15 years
before.

However, the present stakes are clear. The states and sponsors must
urgently :
- increase their financing for access to health care.
- support the possibility of resorting to compulsory licences and parallel
imports so as to permit the Southern countries to obtain expensive
treatments and drugs. These countries can't come up against the prohibitive
prices imposed by drug companies any longer. The international community,
starting with the French government, must involve itself politically to
warrant reasonable prices in the most affected countries.
Act Up-Paris demands that the European Union explain its permanent silence
and that the French government involve itself genuinely.

For more information contact Act Up-Paris :
Arlindo Constantino/GaÎlle Krikorian tel 33 1 49 29 44 75
------------------------
pour Act Up-Paris
Emmanuelle Cosse
http://www.actupp.org
actup@actupp.org
45 rue sedaine
75011 Paris
tel : 33 1 49 29 44 75
fax : 33 1 48 06 16 74





                               -

                               -

G            L            O            B           E

 - - - - - - - - - - - -

european counter network
contact e-mail : samizdat@ecn.org
www.ecn.org/samizdat
envoi de messages sur la liste :  globe_l@ecn.org
archives web : www.ecn.org/lists/globe_l

Indice