Swiss president calls for solidarity on World AIDS Day

President Ruth Dreifuss, marking World AIDS Day, called for solidarity between industrialised and developing nations when it comes to treating people with the immune deficiency disease.

President Ruth Dreifuss, marking World AIDS Day, called for solidarity between industrialised and developing nations when it comes to treating people with the immune deficiency disease.

Dreifuss also warned the Swiss against complacency and urged them not to minimise the dangers of AIDS, even though much progress had been made and AIDS infections were on the decline domestically.

“We must not accept a divide between rich countries, where HIV-infected people receive the latest medical treatment, and a majority of people in the world who do not have adequate access to medical care,” Dreifuss said.
She urged the international community to improve AIDS prevention programmes in nations where millions of people are under threat from the disease.

Education and improving the standing of women in society should be key elements in such a prevention campaign, Dreifuss said.

The latest figures released by UNAIDS, the U.N. agency charged with tackling the disease, showed that 95 percent of HIV sufferers live in poor countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

Infection rates are expected to rise further because of poor health systems, poverty and limited resources to halt the spread of the HIV virus, according to the experts.

“We shouldn’t think that AIDS is just a problem for the developing world,” said Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of UNAIDS.

Sixteen million people have died of AIDS and 33 million are still living with it, according to the latest U.N. figures.

Addressing the situation in Switzerland, Dreifuss warned against complacency in the use of preventive measures.

While she said that the threat of AIDS was by no means over, the president also expressed her hopes that the trend of declining AIDS infections and deaths would continue.

From staff and wire reports.