EU humanitarian aid for fight against HIV/AIDS

Sommaire: August 9, 2002: Fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries: Commission announces €22 million programme aimed at young people (Brussels)

The EU today announced a further contribution of € 22 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries. This programme is aimed primarily at young people in the areas of prevention, care and treatment. Special attention will be paid to the needs of young women who are especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. The objective of this initiative is to ensure that operations aimed at combating HIV/AIDS are made more effective, particularly by improving education and information and strengthening health systems. It comes as an additional contribution to the implementation of the Action Plan adopted last year to fight against the three major communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. This programme also forms an important part of the Commission's policy to fight poverty through improving health, in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals.

The EU support will cover the following activities:

Information, education and communication contributing to a change of behaviour while taking into account the constraints of the socio-economic and cultural context.
Improvement of access to and quality of health services benefiting the young, particularly young women, and decreasing the vulnerability to infection by HIV through a combination of action, research and training aimed at organising and developing health services.
Integration of the gender approach at the level of health systems and in favour of programmes to fight Aids benefiting the young. Tackling the questions related to sexual relations, particularly where young women are at risk due to biological, social and economic factors including diverse forms of violence at home, at school and in the workplace.

The implementation of this additional program will be carried out through private, public, national or/and international non-profit organisations. A call for proposals will be launched in the coming days.

This initiative is part of an overall strategy of the EU to increase and accelerate its combat against poverty-related diseases such as HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. Other initiatives so far undertaken include the tabling of proposals by the EU at the World Trade Organisation to ensure access to medicines in developing countries with no domestic drug production.

Efforts with the pharmaceutical industry are also ongoing to reduce prices for drugs to make them affordable in a sustained and predictable way. Public health issues are also part of the EU strategy for Sustainable Development, high on the international agenda as the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg from 28 August to 4 September 2002 approaches.

Background

Twenty years after its outbreak, AIDS has become the greatest pandemic in the world and the main cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. While the pandemic is tending to stabilise in some European countries and in the USA, it is continuing to spread in many countries, where it is primarily affecting the poor and vulnerable populations. In many developing countries, particularly in Africa, it is the single most important threat to social and economic development. The majority of new infections occur among young adults, young women being particularly affected.

As recently reported at the international Aids Conference in Barcelona, 40 million people today are living with HIV, 95 % of them in developing countries. New infections are occurring at a rate of 15,000 a day. Youth, especially young women, are acquiring the immunodeficiency virus in an accelerated way.

For more background information on EU initiatives to combat major communicable diseases see previous communications: IP/02/1133, IP/02/830, SPEECH/02/52, IP/01/1710, SPEECH/01/491, IP/01/1031, SPEECH/01/310, IP/01/862, IP/01/763, IP/01/689, IP/01/235 and go to:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/eu_africa_en.htm

Ref: EC02-161EN
Source UE: Commission Européenne
UN forum:
Date: 9/8/2002

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