The head of the United Nations agency for Aids called last Friday (16.07) for the foreign debt of African countries to be forgiven and the money put into programs to tackle the Aids epidemic, according to the World Bank press review Monday.
Speaking at the end of a week-long Aids conference in Bangkok, Peter Piot, the executive director of UNAids, described Africas debts as “the dollars 15 billion annually that disappears down the money pit.”
– The money should be channeled instead into spending on health and education, the building blocks of the Aids response, he said.
The comments were made at the end of a week in which nearly 20.000 delegates have been disappointed by the lack of progress in addressing the epidemic on all fronts.
No big scientific advances on vaccines or new drugs have been unveiled and health officials disclosed that only about 7 per cent of the 6 million people in developing countries who should be receiving Aids drugs are getting them. Meanwhile, 5 million people were infected with the virus last year.
Although the World Health Organisation admitted that its plan to have 3 million people on treatment by the end of 2005 was running behind schedule, most frustration has been directed at the US administration and its 15 billion US dollar plan for Aids, says the news report.
Mr Piot said that more funding was needed but he also promised that the money that had been made available for Aids projects would start to have a significant impact over the next two years. – I truly believe that for the first time there is a real chance that we will get ahead of the epidemic, he said.
However, delegates at the conference expressed doubts about the ability of some developing nations to absorb all the cash becoming available for Aids projects because of the lack of resources.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
