AIDS marches on. (News in Brief).

Barcelona -- HIV/AIDS is not going away; in fact, it has not even peaked. This news was announced prior to the opening of the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain on July 8. Peter Piot, director of the U.N. Agency UNAIDS, has said that "we're only at the beginning of the epidemic in historic terms." Since the first AIDS cases were noted over two decades ago, sixty million people have become infected. Last year there were three million deaths from the disease and UNAIDS estimates that sixty-eight million will die before the year 2020.

The disease is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa where an increasing ratio of the victims are young people, women and their newborn babies. Demographic effects in this region include higher infant mortality rates and decreased life expectancy; for example, down from 72 years to 39 years in Botswana alone.

Further UNAIDS data show that the disease is spreading at great speed into regions previously not rated high-risk, such as Eastern Europe and Russia, Asia and the Caribbean. India alone has almost four million cases and there is an increasing incidence in China. Canada has 55,000 cases with a fairly low infection rate of 0.3 percent of adults. The Globe and Mail (July 3, 2002) attributes this "success" to frank sex education, ready access to condoms, needle-exchange programs, and free treatment provided by a universal health insurance system.

As C.I, has previously noted (editorial, April 2002), Canada spends $4 billion per annum on HIV/AIDS treatments already, in particular on "drug cocktails" to slow the progression of the disease. In other words, contrary to the Globe's glib statement, treatment may be free for AIDS patients, but it threatens the future of Canada's health coverage.

Dr. Piot drew attention to the shocking disparities between countries with resources to treat the disease and those in the developing world which lack the funding. He has called on the richer countries of the world to come up with greatly increased funding to improve the supply of anti-retroviral drugs in the Third World.

The Barcelona Conference was the scene not only of the delivery of learned papers by doctors and scientists but also of noisy protests by activist groups, such as the homosexual Act-Up (desecrators of New York's Catholic cathedral some years ago), protesting the Spanish government's limiting of visas for would-be participants. It was also treated to an inflammatory speech from Stephen Lewis, former Canadian ambassador to the U.N., who claimed inter alia that "the pandemic was feasting on gender inequality" and was a "ferocious assault on women and girls" (Star, July 4/02).

Attendees at the conference were further edified by a contribution from former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who affirmed his eligibility for a place in the spotlight by appearing in tandem with the dignified Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa. It is not surprising therefore that some serious participants at the conference have expressed their doubts as to its usefulness. Mr. Lewis also made a guest appearance on CBC Radio l's Saturday morning show "The House" on July 12. Noting that the Canadian government had promised to send $53 million to help combat AIDS in Africa, he berated it for its parsimoniousness, opining that Canada's contribution should be at least $300 million.

Many ideas have been advanced on why HIV/AIDS has progressed thus far, the majority of them suggesting economic conditions and lack of education as root causes. Some studies cite widespread prostitution and promiscuity as a way of life in various communities as additional factors. Very few include personal responsibility for one's sexual behaviour. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the Vatican permanent observer at the U.N., while accepting the other aspects, does not shy away from the latter and advocated attention to the promotion of abstinence and marital fidelity. He noted that the one African country with an actual decrease in infection (Uganda), showed a raising of the average age when sexual relations begin from 15 to 17 years of age.

N.B. Archbishop Javier Barragagan of Barcelona noted that 25 percent of the world's AIDS treatment centres are presently in Catholic facilities. He therefore failed to understand why the Vatican had not been invited to the conference. He further observed that U.N. officials were still promoting condoms and "safe sex" after a dozen years with "no visible results" (see Globe and Mail above).