Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) – Former South African president Nelson Mandela in Paris to attend the International AIDS Conference organised by the International AIDS Society from 13-16 July has called on rich countries to facilitate access to treatment in poor countries. Speaking to 5,000 participants from 120 countries including experts in the field of medicine, Mandela said “Where AIDS is worse, treatment does not arrive”. So far AIDS has killed 26 million people, and 95% of them lived in developing countries. In Africa and Asia AIDS is a time bomb which in a few decades, three or four generations, threatens to destroy some countries completely. The rich north of the planet talks about triple-therapy and anti-retro-viral drugs but in 2002, according to a report diffused in Paris – only 250,000 of AIDS sufferers in poor countries benefited from this sort of treatment. Half lived in Brazil, the first country in the world which is attempting to guarantee general access to anti-AIDS treatment producing the drugs in its own laboratories instead of importing them. Mandela recalled that in Africa today AIDS kills more people than war, hunger and floods.
In the field of research, scientists are concerned because efforts to produce a vaccine may be thwarted by cases of super-infection: in fact there are an increasing number of HIV positive cases which react well to treatment at first but then fall prey to AIDS on coming into contact with a new type of the same virus.
Mandela applauded demonstrators protesting against multi-national pharmaceutics companies and Western governments. The European Union said it will not assign more funds to fight AIDS. AP (Fides Service 16/7/2003 EM lines 326 Words: 322)
