EUROPE/ITALY - Uphill climb to fight AIDS which is decimating a continent causing 85% 2.4 million deaths: CUAMM SATURDAY for AIDS in Africa January 22

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - Figures show a daily emergency: 35 million cases of HIV/AIDS in the world, 5 million new infections in 2003, 2.9 deaths and 85% of these, 2.4 million, in Africa. What can be done? What plans, what resources? This will be the topic of CUAMM SATURDAY 22 January.
AIDS has written a black page of failings, indifference and speculation in the history of humanity. A little more than 20 years since its first appearance the disease is concentrated in the poorest regions of the planet. According to UNAIDS Report 2004 numbers of cases in rich countries are dropping, less people are dying of AIDS thanks to new available therapy. But Africa has neither the resources to guarantee anti-retroviral therapy nor the health systems which lack financial and material means.
Enormous sums of money are needed to face the emergency. So far the Global Fund to fight AIDS TB and malaria has distributed only 2 billion of the 5.616 billion dollars promised for the period 2001-2008.
Five years since the global fund was established the Italian organisation CUAMM Doctors with Africa is taking a look at the HIV/AIDS situation in Africa. Why are promises not kept? What plans and measures should health workers adopt in the daily struggle against HIV/AIDS? These are the questions which CUAMM, S. Egidio Community and the Public Health Department of Florence University will try to answer. (AP) (18/1/2005 Agenzia Fides; Righe:24; Parole:287)