Brussels, 02/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - During its plenary session in Brussels and the World Aids Day, on 1 December, the European Parliament restated in a resolution its appeal in favour of a global approach covering health education, prevention and access to treatment. In the context of the 2007-2013 financial perspectives, it urges for there to be clear funding programmes to combat HIV/AIDS (See EUROPE of 1 December, p.11, for the declarations by Commissioners Kyprianou and Michel).
"AIDS has become more than a health crisis. It is a global threat that we must fight all together as a priority", the Parliament President, Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell, said in a declaration in plenary. "The number of cases of contamination continues to rise and a first therapeutic vaccine has still not been found. It is our duty to use everything at our disposal to combat this scourge effectively", he continued before going on to stress that "this year, the International Day focuses mainly on women and girls" and that "we all know the female population is affected more and more" He added: "On this symbolic Day, I hope to renew our appeal in favour of the dignity of women. Whatever their origin, their nationality, their social milieu or their religion, they must be able to control their own minds and bodies".
Women make up 64% of the infected population in Africa and their numbers are increasing in the wealthy countries also, Italian Communist Luisa Morgantini said, recalling that often women are victims on two levels - because of the high-risk behaviour of their partners and also because of domestic and/or sexual violence against them. She went on to speak in favour of developing action that combines prevention, education and free access to medicine for all sufferers, and in particular to anti-retroviral drugs and condoms. Ms Morgantini also called: (1) upon international donors to honour their financial commitments towards the World Fund against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; (2) for a suspension of the TRIPS agreements to guarantee access to medicines; and (3) for cancellation of the debt of countries most affected.
Slovakian Christian Democrat Anna Zaborska, who chairs the Committee on Women's Rights, also stressed that women and girls represent as much as 75% of the infected population in the most affected areas. She sees, however, that there is cause for hope in the results obtained in Uganda, where HIV/AIDS prevalence has decreased from 13% to 4.5%, and in Senegal where the epidemic is no longer spreading to the same extent. She attributes this result to the massive awareness campaigns in both these countries "encouraging the practice of abstinence within the young population and sensitising the general public about the importance of having only one sexual partner". "These two behavioural changes alone have had an enormous impact in the prevention of AIDS infection", Ms Zaborska said, recognising however that "an additional factor was also very decisive: in order to avoid putting anyone at risk of infection, people with multiple sexual partners were strongly encouraged to always use condoms".
Speaking before MEPs, the new European Health Commissioner, Markos Kyprianou of Cyprus, recalled the figures provided by UNAIDS, Eurostat and the EuroHIV network:
almost 40 million people are living with HIV infection globally; almost half of them are women;
in the European Union, the number of newly reported HIV infections increased by 75% between 1996 and 2003, with the most dramatic increase in the Baltic States;
the Russian Federation is suffering the largest epidemic in Europe with more than 800,000 people estimated to be living with HIV, of which a massive 80% are young people below the age of 30;
according to UNAIDS estimates, more than half a million people are living with HIV in the EU.
In this context, the Commission's commitments are to step up the effort in order to: - reduce the negative impact of the epidemic, give access to affordable anti-retroviral treatment, include youth (Commissioner Kyprianou stressed the need to re-launch awareness campaigns for the general public which has not experienced the communication effort of the eighties), develop epidemiological surveillance of HIV/AIDS, foster research and involve the Civil Society (Markos Kyprianou spoke at length on the social and economic dimensions of the epidemic).