Gathered in Barcelona this week are 15,000 delegates for the 14th International AIDS Conference. It is an enormous number of people for a single conference and is an indication of the gravity of the issue. Twenty years after the identification of the HIV virus, it continues to ravage the world. Some 40 million people now are infected. Someone, somewhere, becomes infected every six seconds; someone dies every 11 seconds.
It is a pandemic that no one can ignore, not a geographical problem or the just deserts of perverts and drugs users. Babies and young children dying of AIDS are not perverts. In some African countries, a third of the population is infected; in seven African states, life expectancy has declined by 17 years to just 40 years of age. In Botswana, for example, half of all pregnant women are infected. And the virus is spreading. There are two million diagnosed with AIDS in Latin America. But it is India, China, South East Asia and the countries of the former Soviet Union that are now experiencing an alarming explosion of the virus. Three years ago, 310,000 Indians died of AIDS: this year it is expected to be several times higher. Nor is the Arab world immune: numbers of infected are also on the rise.
Yet there is hope on the horizon. Yesterday came the news that a US company has developed a vaccine that has proved successful in chimpanzees and looks as if it could work with humans. The vaccine may be available within five years. That is tremendous news. But no one should start celebrating or imagine that the battle is won. Five years is a long time. It is estimated that between now and 2003 — in just three years — 68 million people will die. That is nearly equivalent to the population of Egypt, a little more than the population of France. The matter had to be dealt with now.
What is needed is greater commitment to fight the disease. The scandal is that AIDS is containable. The figures speak for themselves: in the West, although AIDS kills just 25,000 victims a year, half a million infected people are provided annually with treatment that allows them to live with the virus. In Africa, 30,000 people are provided with the same treatment, but 2 million die every year.
It comes down to cash. What is needed are cheap generic drugs, although far more also needs to be done in the developing world to extend awareness campaigns. Criticizing international pharmaceutical companies for being interested only in profits and the West for not providing the money for AIDS campaigns in the developing world, though fashionable, is less than fair. The pharmaceuticals have agreed to cut costs of treatment and major international organizations, funded largely by Western governments, have this year promised $3 billion to fight AIDS compared to just $400 million in 1999. Things are moving in the right direction — but the figure is still short of the $10 billion a year required.
The world’s wealthy nations — not just the EU and the US — need to be even more generous. The developing world needs massive help to overcome the blight of AIDS. They are going to need all the help they can get for years to come — even if there is a vaccine in five year’s time.
