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Swiss take lessons to UN special session on Aids

Swiss activists will be attending the UN session to promote their country's Aids policy Keystone Archive

More than 3,000 government officials, activists and business leaders, including a delegation from Switzerland, begin meeting in New York on Monday at a United Nations special session on HIV/Aids.

The Swiss interior minister, Ruth Dreifuss, is due to address the meeting on the opening day. She is expected to give details of the government’s campaigns and policies to cut the spread of Aids.

Several Swiss non-governmental organisations are also attending, hoping to make an impact on a global crisis which has left 22 million people dead and 36 million infected with HIV/Aids.

High on the UN agenda at the special session will be the issue of leadership and the need to adopt a new global strategy for fighting the epidemic.

In a new report, entitled “Together We Can”, issued ahead of the high-level meeting, UNAids stressed that vigorous leadership was fundamental to effective action against HIV/Aids.

Swiss activists attending the session say they want to use the occasion to show how the strong lead taken by the government and NGOs in Switzerland has been instrumental in addressing the Aids situation in the country.

Mark Bächer, press officer for the Swiss Aids Federation, pointed out: “It is not enough to provide drugs for affected people. You have to provide support.”

The UN is also looking to use the special session to galvanise world leaders into raising the $10 billion (SFr17.8 billion) a year which the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, says is needed to fund the fight against Aids and other infectious diseases.

Earlier this month the Swiss company, Winterthur Insurance, became the first private firm to donate money to the UNAids fund, with a contribution of $1 million.

The United States, France and Britain have also pledged substantial sums to the UN fund, as have other smaller organisations including the Lausanne-based International Olympic Committee.

Louise Frechette, the UN’s deputy secretary-general, said she was hoping for a further increase in funding in New York. “I would hope, and I expect, that we will hear more indications of commitments from the part of donor countries during the special session,” she said.

Governments will also be expected to adopt a “Declaration of Commitment” aimed at achieving a global commitment to tackling the Aids crisis.

swissinfo with agencies

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