World must act - UN
01/12/2005 14:12  - (SA)  

Jakarta - Countries across the globe marked World Aids Day on Thursday as the UN warned that drastic action was needed to counter a global pandemic that was infecting record levels of people with HIV.

"The world faces a choice in the global response to Aids," UNAids Executive Director Peter Piot said from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

"We can either continue to accept that global efforts will fail to keep pace with ever increasing numbers of HIV infections and Aids related deaths, including more and more women and girls," he said.

"Or we can recognise the exceptional global threat posed by Aids and embrace an equally exceptional response."

The number of people living with HIV in 2005 was 40.3 million, the highest figure to date, he said, as he urged countries to invest in HIV prevention as well as treatment and care.

Outgoing Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa warned that HIV/Aids was "wiping out" whole generations in his east African country, urging behavioural changes to stop the spread of the killer disease.

"Let us not joke, Aids is wiping us out," Mkapa said in a nationally televised address late on Wednesday.

"Day after day, parents bury their children instead of children burying their parents," he said.

India has 5.1 million HIV/Aids cases

At least seven percent of adults in the country - about two million people - are infected with HIV, according to Tanzania Commission for Aids, which says at least two million others have died from Aids since 1983.

In Asia, Piot's call was boosted on the eve of the annual Aids day, when a top Chinese official made the government's first official plea to citizens to get tested for HIV.

But activists warn China faces another Aids crisis because of blood transfusions and on Thursday there were reports that two Aids patients who travelled to Beijing to highlight their plight were forced to go home.

Australia's government marked World Aids Day by announcing a A$10m aid programme to help battle the deadly disease in India over five years.

India, with 5.1 million HIV/Aids cases, is home to the second highest number of people with the virus, just behind South Africa.

A group of 30 walkers who sought to educate people about HIV/Aids were set to arrive in New Delhi on Thursday after spending the last year on a 6 800-kilometre trek that took them to 13 Indian states.

Piot said earlier this week he was spending World Aids day in Indonesia to highlight the growing epidemic in Asia, where a decade ago, one in 10 of every new infection came from. Now one in five infections come from the region.

The director also warned that Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, was "the new frontline" in fighting the global Aids battle and needed to drastically improve its response.