UN report sounds grim new warning over AIDS

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

I would like to share a news published in the daily

news paper " THE DAILY TELEGRAMS " published from Govt.

Press, Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Island. The news

is as UN report sounds grim new warning over AIDS

Brussels, Nov 24: The Unwarned that the world is

facing a “unique development challenge,” as new data

showed nearly 40 million will due of AIDS this year,

the highest tolls in the 23 year history of the killer

disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) and

UNAIDS named Asia and Eastern Europe as the regions

where the AIDS virus is spreading the most swiftly and

noted the pandemic was advancing alarmingly among

women. Without urgent action “the world is unlikely to

gain the upper hand over AIDS,” the two United Nations

agencies warned bluntly. “These latest developments

firmly establish AIDS as a unique development

challenge,” said UNAIDS chief Piot, who

presented a new report at a Brussels press conference.

“The time of quick fixes and emergency responses

is over. We have to balance the emergency nature of

the crises with the need for sustainable solutions,”

he added. In an annual report, “World Epidemic

Update,” published ahead of World AIDS Day on December

1, the two agencies estimated that 3.1 million people

will have died from AIDS in 2004, the most in any one

year and 200,000 more than the mortality in 2003.

Around 39.4 million people have the human

immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes the

disease, an increase of 1.6 million over the previous

year and another record. In 2004, 4.9 million people,

the most in any single year, will have become infected

by HIV, compared with 4.8 million new cases in 2003,

they estimated.

Dhananjay.

E-mail: dhananjay_kumarsinha@...