Financing high on agenda at International AIDS Conference

Saturday, July 17, 2010

THE XVlll International AIDS Conference which gets underway tomorrow here in Vienna, will among other things, examine the issue of financing the global HIV/AIDS response as well as the commitment from the G8 countries to replenishing the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Global Fund money is used to finance various programmes aimed at combating the disease in low and middle income countries such as Jamaica.

Additionally, there will be great emphasis on examining how money donated to fund HIV and AIDS programmes has been spent by countries.

Scott Sanders of the International AIDS Society's (IAS) communication department said it should be known at this point if countries are on track to meet the goals to which they had committed to under Universal Access 2010.

"We will be looking at progress, lessons learnt and going forward," Sanders told journalists attending a Panos Global AIDS programme media training prior to tomorrow's opening of the conference, which will run from July 18 to 23.

"At the conference a lot of evidence will be presented in terms of what has happened to the money received thus far," he told journalists.

He added that by October it should be known just how much of the US$20 billion Global Fund money will be committed by countries, which have themselves been affected by the global recession.

He said that countries receiving support will be required to present convincing evidence that universal access is achievable.

Dr Kevin Harvey, head of Jamaica's national HIV programme told the Observer earlier that Jamaica was more than half-way to meeting the 2010 goals.

Other issues scheduled to be discussed at the five-day conference include mounting evidence that 'HIV scale-up programmes' lead/contribute to health system strengthening and improved tracking of tuberculosis, maternal and child health.

"It will be looking at evidence base prevention and putting money into strategies that actually work," according to Sanders.

In the meantime, Sanders pointed out that the decision to host the conference under this year's theme "Rights Here Right Now" in Austria this year is due to its proximity to Eastern Europe where the HIV epidemic is being fueled by intravenous drug use.

Three former Latin American presidents are among the 5,000 signatures already received in support of the official Vienna Declaration which call to action for science-based drug policy reform.

The former leaders - Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Cesar Gaviria of Columbia -- urged alternatives to "war on drugs" in the lead up to the conference.

The Vienna Declaration seeks to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. In a press statement released by the IAS, Cardoso was quoted as saying "the war on drugs has failed".

He said that in Latin America the only outcome of prohibition was to shift areas of cultivation and drug cartels from one country to another, with no reduction in the violence and corruption generated by the drug trade.

Authored by an international group of distinguished scientists and experts, the Vienna Declaration highlights the ways that over reliance on drug law enforcement results in a range of health and social harms including growing HIV rates among people who use drugs.

The three former heads of state are the co-presidents of the Latin American

Commission on Drugs and Democracy, which seeks to inform drug policy in the region and contribute towards more effective, safe and humane drug policies.

The Vienna Declaration also calls on governments and international organisations, including the United Nations, to put a number of things in place, among them:

* scaling up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options; and

* abolishing ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and endorsing and scaling up funding for the drug treatment and harm reduction measures endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations.

The Vienna Declaration also lists a range of harms stemming from the war on drugs, and noted that the criminalisation of people who use drugs has resulted in record high incarceration rates, thereby placing a massive burden on taxpayers.

"Instead of sticking to failed policies with disastrous consequences, we must direct our efforts to the reduction of consumption and the reduction of the harm caused by drugs to people and society," said Cardoso.

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injecting drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV. In some areas of rapid HIV spread, such as in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, injecting drug use is the primary cause of new HIV infections.

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Financing high on agenda at International AIDS Conference