Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Jul 24 2006 (IPS) – Leading civil society groups are seeing new hope in the fight against AIDS following decisions taken at the G8 summit earlier this month.
Two non-governmental organisations involved in the fight against the disease in Russia and central Asia, the AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW) and the Trans-Atlantic Partners Against AIDS (TPAA), commended Russia and other G8 members (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan) for their initiative to address AIDS and other infectious diseases.
The time has come for the G8 leaders to support civil society together with multilateral agencies, AFEW executive director Joost van der Meer told IPS in an emailed comment.
The leaders must take initiatives to implement strategies that respond to the needs of the most marginalised and hard to reach populations, such as drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men, prison inmates and vulnerable children.
He said G8 leaders should help eradicate the stigma and discrimination against people living with the disease, particularly by lifting travel restrictions, and work in close partnership with civil society to fight the spread of the disease.
It s necessary for the G8 countries to strongly encourage trade agreements that take into account public health needs, and avoid restricting access to essential medicines, van der Meer said.
TPAA president John Tedstrom told IPS that Russia, which has by far the lowest per capita gross domestic product of the G8 countries, has made significant investments in public health, and this is reflected in increases in the federal budget to fight the disease.
From 2005 to 2006 Russia increased the federal AIDS budget by 20 times. That budget is due to double in 2007.
The results of the summit were less exciting than in the years past, but this is mostly a reflection of the following considerations: first, the priority issues of energy security, the Middle East peace and the war on terror, and secondly, the AIDS fight is moving into a phase of consolidation of prior commitments and pledges and initiatives.
Until those are met, he said, it would be difficult to get big new commitments from governments.
I think the summit missed the opportunity to put AIDS in Eurasia on the agenda in a strategic way, he said. The epidemics in Russia, China and India, in particular, need more attention both from national governments and from the international community.
The G8 leaders mostly renewed their commitment to deliver promises made at the previous summits to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund).
The leaders said in a joint statement that the commitments would be carried out though mobilising support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and continuing to pursue as close as possible the universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment for all who need it by 2010.
The document further sets out guidelines as follows:
* promotion of a comprehensive and well-balanced approach to tackling HIV/AIDS, which includes prevention, treatment and care; and scale up support to address the rising rates of HIV infection among young people, particularly young girls and women;
* continued involvement of all relevant partners, including civil society, the private sector and people living with HIV/AIDS, in the activities to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to reduce stigma and discrimination against people with this disease;
* supporting the continued implementation of comprehensive, evidence-based strategies of prevention, and the development of new and innovative methods of prevention, such as microbicides, and vaccines against the diseases that increase the risk of HIV transmission and facilitating access to prevention, treatment and care for the most vulnerable segments of the population;
* building the capacity of health care systems in poor countries through recruitment, training and deployment of public and private health workers; and raising public awareness of the existing threat in all countries affected.
Significant decisions were taken in the area of fighting infectious diseases and we intend to work intensively on developing international efforts to prevent and stem the spread of epidemics, President Vladimir Putin said after summit.
*Corrects quotes from John Tedstrom.
