HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS

Introduction

AIDS is an unprecedented global crisis. It requires an unprecedented response from each and every one of us.

The world has known about AIDS for twenty years. During that time the disease has spread to every continent. In the worst affected countries, it has back human progress by decades. But over the past twenty years we have also learnt a great deal about how to tackle AIDS. The most important lesson has been that half-measures do not work against this epidemic.

The only way the epidemic can be reversed is through a total social mobilization. Leadership from above needs to meet creativity, energy, and leadership from below, joining together in a co-ordinated programme of sustained social action.

Alarmed by the accelerating epidemic and its global impact, the United Nations General Assembly has decided to convene a special session on HIV/AIDS at the highest political level. It was held from 25 to 27 June 2001 in New York. It was aimed to intensify international action to fight the epidemic and to mobilize the resources needed. Through the political Declaration of Commitment adopted by all the representatives of States and Governments assembled at the United Nations, the international community set common targets for reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and alleviating its impact, establishing as priorities among a wide agenda:

First, to ensure that people every where - particularly the young - know what to do to avoid infection;

Second, to stop perhaps the most tragic of all forms of HIV transmission - from mother to child; 

Third, to provide treatment to all those infected;

Fourth, to redouble the search for a vaccine, as well as a cure; and

Fifth, to care for all whose lives have been devastated by AIDS, particularly more than 13 million orphans.

Within the United Nations system, the Global Strategy Framework on HIV/AIDS will provide guidance for the next phase. It draws on lessons from the past to map out the path for the future.

The AIDS pandemic is diverse, but a common understanding of its causes and dynamics will help to promote a shared sense of the urgency and scale of the response needed.

The Global Strategy Framework puts forward a set of building principles and leadership commitments that together form the basis for successful response to the epidemic. Global, national and community bodies will still need to formulate their own specific strategies concerning particular themes or regions, and are encouraged to take the Global Strategy Framework and use it as a guide in the development and re-evaluation of their own strategies for action.

Surveillance statistics

Most countries with high rates of HIV have conducted regular national HIV surveillance studies since the early 1990s. AIDS case reporting began much earlier, in the early 1980s. All of the data are available to the public online.

HIV and AIDS in Thailand, 1984-2000

AIDS case statistics are generally expected to underestimate the scale of AIDS epidemics, especially in African countries, because many cases go unreported. However, it is reasonable to assume that trends in the number of reports should roughly ...