Håkan Eriksson
Commander of the Swedes.
From CNN:
LONDON, England -- Millions of people around the globe marked World AIDS Day under the shadow of grim statistics which show the raging epidemic outpacing all efforts to control it.
From Europe to Asia to Africa, Sunday's activities highlight how far the disease has spread since it was first detected among homosexual men in the United States in 1981.
According to the latest U.N. estimates, more than 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV -- the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton marked the day by urging greater efforts to treat victims of the disease, saying prevention and education were not enough.
Clinton wrote in The New York Times: "We can and must do more to stop the spread of AIDS by doing more to treat people who already have it.
"Now that we have the medical capacity to save and improve the lives of millions of people, there is no other moral or practical choice."
Speaking on Saturday, UNAIDS head Peter Piot said the social prejudice suffered by people with AIDS could be as destructive as the disease itself.
He said: "Discrimination and stigma continue to stand as barriers. Stigma silences individuals and communities, saps their strength, increases their vulnerability, isolates people and deprives them of care and support.
"We must break down these barriers or the epidemic will have no chance of being pushed back."
AIDS will have killed 3.1 million people by the end of this year, while 5 million more will have been infected, the U.N. said in its report.
Ominously, the virus appears to be spreading into regions which could transform the epidemic into a truly global disaster.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with 1.2 million cases, now show the fastest-growing epidemics, while officials fear that China and India are AIDS time bombs.
Already an estimated 1 million Chinese are infected with HIV and unless effective responses take hold, the number could reach 10 million by the end of the decade, the U.N. report says.
Worldwide, half of those infected are now women, the report says, meaning more babies could become infected through their mothers.
In southern Africa, where almost 30 million people are already infected with the disease, millions of children have been orphaned, cemetery space is running out and food output is falling as agricultural workers are dying.
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said: "There is no longer a distinction between those living with HIV/AIDS and those who are not.
"We are all living with the disease and are affected by it in many ways."
To mark World AIDS Day, the Chinese government launched a national campaign for students to go into the countryside to educate people about the disease and denounce discrimination against sufferers. The campaign was launched at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, China's political centre.
Elsewhere, thousands took to the streets in Hanoi and Bangkok to promote AIDS awareness, while in India a marathon was held to raise public knowledge of HIV/AIDS.
"Silence is death when it comes to fighting HIV/AIDS," said Jordan Ryan, the U.N. resident coordinator in Vietnam.
"It's time to tear down the walls of stigma and silence."
In India, where some 4 million people are infected with HIV, officials in the eastern city of Bhubaneshwar on Sunday unfurled a record-long 6 km (3.7 mile) banner to mark World AIDS Day.
Printed with slogans about HIV/AIDS prevention, the banner was signed by some 100,000 people -- mostly students campaigning to raise awareness.
In Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced new initiatives to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic within developing Asian nations.
Earlier in the week, the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations warned that Australia potentially faced a second wave of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, saying more Australians are infected with HIV than ever before -- about 12,000 people.
In Singapore, an all-night dance-party on the tourist island of Sentosa was expected to raise 250,000 Singapore dollars (US$142,000) for AIDS education and support programs.
The UK revealed that the number of new cases of HIV there looks set to rise by 25 percent.
According to new data from the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS), by the end of September, 2,945 new diagnoses had been reported for 2002. There were 2,354 new cases in the same period last year.
Dr. Kevin Fenton, of the PHLS Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, told the Press Association: "We now appear to be seeing more than twice as many new HIV diagnoses each year than we were at the end of the 1990s.
"We were very concerned last year when we saw a record number of new HIV diagnoses but these latest figures are even more disturbing.
"We are not only diagnosing infections that were acquired many years ago. HIV is a current, not historical problem."
LONDON, England -- Millions of people around the globe marked World AIDS Day under the shadow of grim statistics which show the raging epidemic outpacing all efforts to control it.
From Europe to Asia to Africa, Sunday's activities highlight how far the disease has spread since it was first detected among homosexual men in the United States in 1981.
According to the latest U.N. estimates, more than 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV -- the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton marked the day by urging greater efforts to treat victims of the disease, saying prevention and education were not enough.
Clinton wrote in The New York Times: "We can and must do more to stop the spread of AIDS by doing more to treat people who already have it.
"Now that we have the medical capacity to save and improve the lives of millions of people, there is no other moral or practical choice."
Speaking on Saturday, UNAIDS head Peter Piot said the social prejudice suffered by people with AIDS could be as destructive as the disease itself.
He said: "Discrimination and stigma continue to stand as barriers. Stigma silences individuals and communities, saps their strength, increases their vulnerability, isolates people and deprives them of care and support.
"We must break down these barriers or the epidemic will have no chance of being pushed back."
AIDS will have killed 3.1 million people by the end of this year, while 5 million more will have been infected, the U.N. said in its report.
Ominously, the virus appears to be spreading into regions which could transform the epidemic into a truly global disaster.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with 1.2 million cases, now show the fastest-growing epidemics, while officials fear that China and India are AIDS time bombs.
Already an estimated 1 million Chinese are infected with HIV and unless effective responses take hold, the number could reach 10 million by the end of the decade, the U.N. report says.
Worldwide, half of those infected are now women, the report says, meaning more babies could become infected through their mothers.
In southern Africa, where almost 30 million people are already infected with the disease, millions of children have been orphaned, cemetery space is running out and food output is falling as agricultural workers are dying.
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said: "There is no longer a distinction between those living with HIV/AIDS and those who are not.
"We are all living with the disease and are affected by it in many ways."
To mark World AIDS Day, the Chinese government launched a national campaign for students to go into the countryside to educate people about the disease and denounce discrimination against sufferers. The campaign was launched at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, China's political centre.
Elsewhere, thousands took to the streets in Hanoi and Bangkok to promote AIDS awareness, while in India a marathon was held to raise public knowledge of HIV/AIDS.
"Silence is death when it comes to fighting HIV/AIDS," said Jordan Ryan, the U.N. resident coordinator in Vietnam.
"It's time to tear down the walls of stigma and silence."
In India, where some 4 million people are infected with HIV, officials in the eastern city of Bhubaneshwar on Sunday unfurled a record-long 6 km (3.7 mile) banner to mark World AIDS Day.
Printed with slogans about HIV/AIDS prevention, the banner was signed by some 100,000 people -- mostly students campaigning to raise awareness.
In Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced new initiatives to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic within developing Asian nations.
Earlier in the week, the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations warned that Australia potentially faced a second wave of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, saying more Australians are infected with HIV than ever before -- about 12,000 people.
In Singapore, an all-night dance-party on the tourist island of Sentosa was expected to raise 250,000 Singapore dollars (US$142,000) for AIDS education and support programs.
The UK revealed that the number of new cases of HIV there looks set to rise by 25 percent.
According to new data from the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS), by the end of September, 2,945 new diagnoses had been reported for 2002. There were 2,354 new cases in the same period last year.
Dr. Kevin Fenton, of the PHLS Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, told the Press Association: "We now appear to be seeing more than twice as many new HIV diagnoses each year than we were at the end of the 1990s.
"We were very concerned last year when we saw a record number of new HIV diagnoses but these latest figures are even more disturbing.
"We are not only diagnosing infections that were acquired many years ago. HIV is a current, not historical problem."
