THE UN special AIDS summit which ends today in New York should have happened long ago. Twenty-two million people have died of the disease in 20 years; whole nations face decline because their economically active population is being decimated. Some African countries, where 25 percent of 15-24-year-olds have AIDS, see their future disappearing like a mirage; in Botswana, 36 percent of the population is infected. And now the disease is galloping through Asia and in Eastern Europe.
No one is healed of AIDS. Sooner or later, the victim dies, usually a horrible lingering death, although new drugs can significantly extend the life of those infected, permitting them an otherwise reasonable state of health. The tragedy is that in the developing world, where AIDS is largely to be found, such drugs are not available, partly because of costs and partly because of official discomfort with the whole issue. This latter is why it has taken so long to arrive at this summit, the UN’s first ever on a disease.
Too many countries have been afraid and ashamed to admit to AIDS’ existence within their borders. And where governments do admit its existence, some still feel obliged to invent bizarre explanations for it, such as South African President Thabo Mbeki’s weird insistence that AIDS and HIV are unrelated. It is too easy and too complacent to dismiss AIDS as the curse of homosexuals, drug addicts and prostitutes. That is to look at AIDS as if it only occurs in a decadent West.
But of the 22 million people who have died of AIDS, the overwhelming number were not homosexuals, drug addicts or prostitutes. They were ordinary Africans. Children accounted for 4.4 million of the total. What deviant category should they be put in? It is no exaggeration to say that the pandemic is the biggest crisis facing Africa today. But of course it is not just an African disaster, it is a world one. And because of that, all help is needed. The UN estimates that if the disease is to be successfully contained, those infected properly treated, and further research undertaken, it will cost $9 billion a year: An enormous figure. It can be done, however.
Certain countries have responded generously, the USA among them. So too have individuals. The donation of $100m by Bill Gates of Microsoft, the same as France’s, shows that whatever one thinks of business tactics and his stranglehold over the international computer industry, he clearly has a social conscience. But this must not be seen as yet another case for the West to give and everyone else to benefit. All must play their part. Generous donations from Arab states can be expected. Inevitably, however, AIDS places a particular moral imperative on the world’s drug companies, largely Western based. AIDS must not be an opportunity for them to make a fortune, any more than World War II was an opportunity for American and British arms manufactures to get rich. In that context, Washington’s withdrawal of its complaint against Brazil for manufacturing cheap drugs to fight AIDS is most welcome. It is practical help where practical help is needed. The struggle against AIDS is costly, but it just not money that is needed. If such cheap drugs were widely available throughout Africa, millions more, who will die, could be saved. They should be made available.
