ASIA-PACIFIC: Willing Coalition to Treat HIV/AIDS

Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, Feb 27 2006 (IPS) – Millions of dollars will be injected into the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS in the Asia Pacific region under a significant new partnership between the Australian government and the William J. Clinton Foundation.
The Australian Government has committed 25 million US dollars over four years, complemented by funding from the Clinton Foundation, to focus on jointly treating HIV-infected people in Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and China under an agreement signed by Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer and former United States president Bill Clinton, last week.

Many of the Australian government s programmes until now, and will continue to be, preventative, but dealing with the treatment side of it is going to be an important part of the effort we make to help fight HIV in the region , Downer emphasised.

The United Nations estimates that more than eight million people in the Asia Pacific region are living with HIV and that this figure may reach 20 million by 2010 if immediate action is not taken to curb virus spread.

The new partnership is aimed at strengthening the capacity of regional governments to scale up treatment and care for people living with HIV/AIDS. This will include improving the procurement and supply of anti-retroviral drugs, improving laboratory and testing infrastructure and strengthening monitoring and evaluation systems.

AIDS groups have welcomed the partnership devoted to combating HIV in the region. Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations national president Ian Rankin said the strategies come at a vital stage of the response. As a HIV-positive person I know how important these are for our colleagues with HIV in Asian and Pacific countries and particularly urgently required in Papua New Guinea. The initiative confirms shift to a more strategic, systemic and effective approach to responding to the HIV epidemic in the region.
Research commissioned by Australia s international aid agency, AusAID, estimates that more than 60,000 people or one per cent of the entire population of Papua New Guinea is already infected with HIV and predicts that this number could increase to more than half a million by 2025.

In the capital Port Moresby, more than 60 percent of hospital beds are taken by HIV patients. Experts say that, with annual infection rate increasing by 33 per cent a year, the country is on the verge of an African-style disaster that could kill millions and destroy the economy.

Official estimates by UNAIDS and AusAid put the numbers of people living with HIV in the following Asia Pacific countries at between 0.1-2.0 per cent of adult (15-49 years) populations; India 5 million people, China 800,000, Thailand 975,000, Myanmar 516,000, Cambodia 240,000. In East Timor, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu few diagnoses have been reported but there is a risk that HIV/AIDS will take a path similar to Papua New Guinea.

There is clearly a moral imperative to do something about thisà since this disease is 100 per cent preventable. There are places in Africa, and indeed there are villages in rural China, where there are no young adults left. There is medicine which stops transmission to children of pregnant women about 100 per cent of the time. And finally, there are anti-retroviral drugs which will give almost all children and adults a normal lifespan if they are given as part of an overall health plan , Clinton said.

While Downer referred frequently to lost business opportunities, if the disease continues to spread in the region, Clinton stressed other reasons for devoting his time to this issue, noting that last year half a million children around the world died of AIDS.

The idea that these children are dying like flies and people like us, with the money we have, are walking away from them and not keeping them alive is inexcusable, Clinton said, adding that children needed paediatric AIDS medicine. It s not like a pill you can take and cut in half. Last year, in the whole developing world, only 25,000 kids were getting medicine and 15,000 of them were in Brazil and Thailand, where the government provides it.

The Clinton Foundation recently announced HIV/AIDS programmes in India, the second-worst affected nation after South Africa, and negotiated major price discounts on AIDS tests and drugs with nine companies from five countries, including India and China to help cut the cost of testing and treatment in 50 developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

AusAid and the Clinton Foundation will begin with providing testing in these developing countries. The aim is to be able to test for 50 US cents and tell the person in 20 minutes if they re HIV positive or not. In Xinjiang province, western China, where AusAID has a programme focused on delivering care and treatment to injection drug users, the Clinton Foundation will help address more people.

The announcement of Australia s new links with the Clinton Foundation coincided with the launch of the Asia Pacific Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. AusAID and the Lowy Institute for International Policy launched the business coalition to be headed by Australia s flagship carrier Qantas chairperson Margaret Jackson.

The business coalition will work to implement workplace policies and education programmes on HIV; use the resources of business to disseminate HIV prevention messages; and support other organisations such as the Clinton Foundation, the Global Fund, AusAID and the Lowy Institute in trying to prevent more people actually becoming infected with HIV and help those infected live within their communities.

Jackson said: HIV is a medical emergency and a long-term threat to economic growth and development. If serious efforts are not made to halt this epidemic, by 2010, 40 per cent of the world s new infections will be in the Asia Pacific region.

She explained how the disease is actively transmitted via economic activity Labour migration, transport networks, infrastructure projects, mining and logging sites. HIV infections mostly strike people of working age from 15 to 49, thus striking the most productive sections of society.

The World Bank has concluded that if current infection trends continue, HIV/AIDS will halt and then begin to reverse Asia s economic growth.

A joint UN-Asian Development Bank study puts economic losses from HIV/AIDS in the Asia Pacific in 2001 at about 7.3 billion dollars and projects annual financial losses of up to 17.5 billion dollars by 2010. On the other hand, the study showed that there would be annual savings of nearly eight billion dollars were to be invested over the next four years until the year 2010.

Oxfam Australia said the establishment of the new coalition represented recognition of the role the private sector can play in responding to HIV and AIDS. Currently the private sector contributes less than one per cent of the resources needed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. We hope that the establishment of this coalition will result in a substantial increase in financial support from business, executive director Andrew Hewett said.

Australia plays a lead role in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Asia Pacific region and has committed a total of 600 million dollars from 2000 to 2010 to combat HIV.