'At current rate of progress, none of the agreed targets will be met'; the general assembly debates HIV/AIDS.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the General Assembly's high-level meeting on 22 September 2003 with sobering news. In 2001, the Declaration of Commitment that set concrete goals for containing the spread of HIV/AIDS and aiding its victims was approved. By 2005, "we should have cut by a quarter the number of young people infected with HIV in the worst-affected nations; we should have halved the rate at which infants contract HIV; and we should have comprehensive care programmes in place", Mr. Annan said. However, at the current rate of progress, none of the agreed targets would be met and "we are still only half way to the $10 billion a year that is needed by 2005. We have come a long way, but not far enough.... We cannot claim that competing challenges are more important or more urgent. We cannot accept that 'something else came up' that forced us to place AIDS on the back burner. Something else will always come up."

Over 100 Member States contributed data for a United Nations Development Programme report that revealed startling facts. Women and girls now represent more than half of all global HIV infections, reaching 58 per cent in Africa. More than 14 million children lost one or both parents to the virus, including 11 million in sub-Saharan Africa alone. "Yet 39 per cent of reporting States with generalized epidemics lack national strategies for children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS", the report says, revealing that fewer than one in four persons at risk of infection is able to obtain basic information regarding the disease.

Secretary of State Colin Powell of the United States told the Assembly that HIV/AIDS was more devastating than any terrorist attack or weapon of mass destruction, and as cruel as any tyrant. It tore apart families and undermined Governments; it could destroy countries and destabilize entire regions. In the fight against the disease, he said, all countries had a strong ally in the United States, which recently signed into law a $15-billion five-year emergency plan that targets 14 of the most affected countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

Botswana's Minister of Health Lesogo Motsumi said her country of 1.7 million people had the unenviable distinction of having one of the world's highest HIV-infection rates: 35.4 per cent of the adult population in 2002. Political leaders, civil society, religious organizations and the business sector would be mobilized to integrate a national development plan for 2003-2009, with the goal of achieving an AIDS-free generation by 2016. Minister for Foreign Affairs Igor S. Ivanov of the Russian Federation said that there could be 5 million infected with HIV/AIDS in his country if it kept spreading at the current rate.

A Plan had been worked out to bring about a comprehensive solution to contain the virus and protect the rights of those already infected and, at his country's initiative, urgent measures had been developed to counter the spread of the disease in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States 

Mam Bun Heng of Cambodia said that although his country had the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, prevalence in sub-populations at high risk had declined. Cambodia had formed a national AIDS authority and a multisectoral HIV/AIDS management and coordination body. Its "100-per-cent Condom-Use Campaign" was seen as a model for South-East Asia, and prevention efforts had reduced new infections from 100 per day in 1997 to about 20 in 2003. Minister of Health of the Bahamas Marcus C. Bethel said his country intended to provide universal access to antiretroviral therapy by 2005, so long as the cost of drugs continued to decrease and negotiations with pharmaceutical companies were successful. All HIV-positive mothers had been given antiretroviral treatment during and after pregnancy, reducing mother-to-child transmission to some 3 per cent in 2002. With tourism as the main engine for economic growth, 40 per cent of hotels in the Bahamas had prevention programmes, resulting in a 50-per-cent death rate decrease from the disease in 2002.

Eduardo Sevilla Somoza of Nicaragua spoke of the rising HIV-infection rates for people 20 to 34 years of age. It was alarming that the epidemic was becoming more generalized, he said, and the Government, together with the World Health Organization, had established intervention plans. The national strategy is aimed at strengthening networks of cooperation for fighting the disease, ensuring equality and non-discrimination for people living with HIV/AIDS, giving them access to health care, and monitoring HIV/AIDS in all health sub-sectors.

President Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies pointed out that the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria initiatives promised to alleviate much of the suffering caused by the pandemic, and it was an ethical duty for Member States to contribute. The $10 billion agreed to under the Declaration of Commitment represented only $250 per infected person over three years, which is less than $1 a day. He said that the Global Fund, by far the best investment in the struggle against AIDS, was in danger because of a lack of resources.