Top officials at the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, at its yearly meeting are focussing on the negative effects of HIV/AIDS on population dynamics, including population losses and decreased life expectancy, as well as the pandemic's links to increased extreme poverty, stalled economic growth and poor reproductive health in many parts of the world.
The Commission's special focus this year on population, development and HIV/AIDS, with particular emphasis on poverty, was highlighted by Jose Antonio Ocampo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, who reflected on the dramatic scope of the deadly disease, which kills over 3 million people a year.
He said that since the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS in 2001, the epidemic continues to expand, with both rich and poor countries being affected, with the poorest countries in the world being the hardest-hit. Currently, over 40 million people are living with HIV, at least 25 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halting or reversing the spread of HIV is crucial for the development prospects of many countries and constant vigilance and sustained effort was demanded.
Effective prevention programmes to reduce mother-to-child transmission, were still far from being universal and more also had to be done to expand access to anti-retroviral treatment.
The action plan adopted by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) if fully implemented could greatly contribute to helping reduce the spread of the disease, particularly by ensuring that people got the information and means to protect themselves.
Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), said that international strategies would be more effective if HIV/AIDS and reproductive health and family planning were linked, as appropriate. That would allow women at the community level to benefit directly from such services, and the services would reach the most vulnerable group of women and young people. National plans and budgets, including health-sector reforms and poverty-reduction strategies need to reflect these needs and address the realities they faced.