U.N. Experts Urge EU to Tackle AIDS Crisis

Speaking on the eve of a two-day conference in Dublin, Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, the U.N.'s AIDS group, said HIV/AIDS was spreading faster in eastern Europe and central Asia than anywhere else in the world, with a 50-fold increase in new cases during the past 10 years.

"Let's get serious. This is an underestimated and forgotten epidemic and if we don't take some very exceptional measures it's going to get out of hand," he told Reuters in an interview.

The conference, "Breaking the Barriers -- Partnership to fight HIV/AIDS in Europe and Central Asia," is the largest to be hosted by Ireland during its six-month EU presidency. It comes as the 15-strong EU prepares to welcome 10 new members, most of them from eastern Europe, on May 1.

"I have a double message for EU leaders," Piot said. "Don't think the problem is fixed in your own region -- we're seeing a slow but steady increase in new infections in every country. Secondly, at your eastern borders there is a huge AIDS epidemic that is going to have major implications within the EU."

He said the focus in recent years on Africa, where up to 40 percent of the adult population is infected in some sub-Saharan regions, meant eastern Europe had "slipped through the cracks."
 

YOUNG PEOPLE AT RISK

"In eastern Europe and central Asia it is estimated that 80 percent of those infected with HIV are aged 30 or below," she said, a result largely of widespread sharing of needles by intravenous drug users.

"While the numbers may not be as big as in some parts of the world, the scale and speed of the growth in these regions clearly makes this a crisis," she said, adding she hoped the conference would be a wake-up call for the EU.

Piot and Bellamy agreed that political awareness and leadership were key to tackling the problem, and Piot said he would like to see a designated EU commissioner appointed to take responsibility for the fight against AIDS.

In 1995 there were around 13,000 cases of HIV/AIDS in eastern Europe, Piot said, a number that had swollen last year to an estimated 1.5 million.

In the EU, around 30,000 people have the disease, while globally the number has reached 40 million.

Around one percent of the populations of Russia and Ukraine are infected, according to U.N. statistics [верить которой безусловно нельзя ;)].

Bellamy acknowledged that focusing attention on the problem in eastern Europe could feed into worries in existing EU member states about increased migration within the bloc as borders open up following eastward enlargement.

"No question about it, but it's only one factor in immigration. If the approach is 'shut the doors' it'll keep a few people out but it's not dealing with the problem which is already moving into the mainstream," she said.

"AIDS in this region is a very, very serious issue."

Tuesday, government representatives from some 55 countries will sign up to the Dublin Declaration, an action plan which includes a commitment to eliminate HIV/AIDS among infants in eastern Europe and central Asia by 2010.
 

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