Top researchers, policymakers and activists head to Bangkok this week to assess the global AIDS pandemic as the killer disease is poised to ravage Eastern Europe and Asia's most populous countries.
Up to 20,000 people are registered for the conference starting on Sunday, making it the biggest potential turnout for any meeting in the 23-year history of AIDS and the first time this key event will be held in a developing country in Asia.
Ahead of the conference, the UN agency UNAIDS will tomorrow issue its first detailed update on the world epidemic in two years, giving the latest estimated toll of deaths and new infections and country-by-country figures.
PHOTO: AFP
Since it first came to light in 1981, acquired immune deficiency syndrome has left no cranny of the world unscathed.
According to previous estimates, the disease had claimed some 25 million to 26 million lives as of last year, and around 40 million people were living with the disease or the virus that causes it. Around 14,000 more people each day become infected.
There is no cure for HIV, only antiretroviral drugs which keep the virus at bay and which are only just now starting to trickle into poor countries that need them most. And any vaccine to prevent infection seems to lie years away.
Ironically, says UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, the picture is brighter today than it has been in years.
"The landscape of AIDS has changed quite dramatically," he said in a phone interview. "In developing countries, our work has changed, especially in Africa."
The main improvement, he said, is that money is at last starting to flow in big volumes, with funds reaching more than US$5 billion this year alone.
This is still not enough to meet needs, but -- combined with big price cuts for drugs -- it has given a kickstart to the UN's goal of providing three million poor people with antiretroviral therapy by the end of next year.
China, India and Indonesia -- Asia's Big Three, accounting for more than a third of humanity -- are ripe targets for AIDS, as are the former Soviet-bloc countries, experts say.
Each nation is different, but a common thread binds them. The bitter experience of the US, Europe and Africa shows how ignorance, stigma, official indifference and poor resources become a lethal combination, enabling the virus to leap out of small, localized demographic pools and into the population mainstream.
"The handshake of [Chinese] Premier Wen Jiabao (
But, he said, the level of political awareness was not the same in Eastern Europe, facing the fastest-growing HIV spread of any region in the world.
As for India and its neighbors, "the leaders are in a state of denial and there is a very high level of discomfort to even talk about it," Praful Patel, the World Bank's regional vice president, complained last Wednesday. "[They thought] HIV-AIDS is an African problem and it cannot happen in South Asia."
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
RSS