Top UN official urges African leaders to invest in a full-scale response to AIDS

With up to 1,000 people dying of AIDS each day in the worst-affected countries in Africa and 60 million across the continent impacted by the epidemic, a top United Nations official today urged leaders at the African Union Summit in Mozambique to invest in prevention, care and treatment of the epidemic.

"Only if AIDS is rapidly brought under control will social and economic development be able to flourish," said Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) during a forum on health and development, that brought together African heads of state, UN officials, and AIDS experts at the Summit.

"Sixty million Africans have been touched by AIDS in the most immediate way. They are either living with HIV, have died of AIDS or they have lost their parents to AIDS. But the toll of those directly affected is even higher," he said of the pandemic that has become Africa's biggest challenge.

As the impact of AIDS continues to devastate the continent's economies, communities, and development, African leaders are mounting a full-scale response targeting all sectors, according to UNAIDS.

"Nineteen African nations have established government-wide AIDS councils or commissions personally chaired by the head of state, head of government or their deputy, to take charge of a multi-sectoral response to AIDS," Dr. Piot said, stressing that such full-scale responses to the epidemic need to be complemented by full scale resources.

UNAIDS estimates that over $10.5 billion a year will be needed in 2005 for prevention, treatment, care and support programmes in low and middle-income countries - about half of that total in Africa alone.

Of the 42 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, an estimated 30 million, or 70 per cent live in sub-Saharan Africa.