World Bank Warns Of Impending AIDS Crisis In Europe, Asia
Geplaatst op Wednesday 17 September @ 14:06:27 GMT+1 door webmaster
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WASHINGTON — A massive mobilization of money and political will is needed now in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to avert an HIV/AIDS crisis on the order of the one that has ravaged sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank said today at the launch of a program to fight the disease
The Eastern Europe and Central Asia region has the highest HIV/AIDS growth rate in the world, with cases last year having leapt by 25 percent to 1.2 million, according to the World Health Organization and the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS. The raw numbers lag far behind those for Africa, and the prevalence rate is still below 1 percent, but World Bank experts told reporters today that without concentrated intervention, that could change. Botswana, with the highest rate of prevalence in the world, was cited as proof of what can happen when the problem is ignored.
"Eastern Europe and Central Asia are where Africa used to be," said Debrework Zewdie, the bank's global HIV/AIDS program director. "We can show growth rates where Botswana, which has a 38 percent prevalence rate, had the same kind of prevalence in 1986 that Russia has now."
Money is an issue, the bank's experts agreed, and more must be allocated to fighting the disease. The bank's lead health specialist for the region, Olusoji Adeyi, says large-scale programs in the region will require a fivefold increase in current spending, from $300 million in 2001 to $1.5 billion in 2007.
But money without political will is useless, Adeyi said, and the stigmatization of the disease — which first took hold in Eastern Europe and Central Asia among injection drug users, just as in Africa it first took hold among prostitutes — is the principal barrier to adopting progressive programs like clean-needle exchanges or free condom distribution networks.
"Governments are not eager to tackle social taboos," said Odeyi. "Most government officials are not keen to be associated with a program for injection drug users or sex workers."
To fight the stigmatization problem, the World Bank's regional support strategy prioritizes social marketing campaigns educating people about the facts and myths about HIV/AIDS. The bank's plan also proposes supporting the work of nongovernmental organizations whose small-scale operations on the street might be expanded to serve countrywide populations. Another priority is establishing reliable and consistent epidemiological surveillance, the better to identify vulnerable populations and keep decision-makers informed.
"My take in it is Eastern Europe and Central Asia region seems to be reenacting what has happened in other regions," Odeyi said. "The first stage is denial: it can't happen to us. And then there's the slowly waking up. The CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] has officially declared war on HIV/AIDS. But there is still a gap between the declarations and the work on the ground."
The bank warned that many of the region's countries, only now enjoying periods of economic growth after a rough transition from state-run economies during the Soviet era, could see those gains reverse in the event of an epidemic as rising health care costs compounded economic contractions.
"It boils down to us to a very simple message," Odeyi said. "We have a serious and rapidly growing epidemic that has the potential to develop into a very catastrophic AIDS crisis in many of the countries."
bron: http://www.unwire.org (UNwire)
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