|
APPEAL
FOR THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA
Sant'Egidio, 13 MAY 2004
The
appeal was signed by the representatives of the governments of IVory
Coast, ethiopia, guinea bissau, guinea conakry, Liberia, malawi, Mozambique,
central african rep. , senegal, Sudan, tanzania, togo.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic silently threatens
Africa and most of the world. To tackle and defeat HIV/AIDS is a priority
for those who care for the future of the planet.
For this reason, as Ministers of Health,
experts, men and women working for justice and the defence of human dignity,
gathered in Rome upon the invitation of the Community of Sant'Egidio, we
address all workers, international agencies and leaders of the economically
most developed countries, in the name of our peoples and our own consciences,
to ask for the fight against HIV/AIDS to become an immediate choice and a true
commitment.
HIV/AIDS affects the whole planet, but today
70 per cent of its victims are born and die in Africa. The virus has
already affected 30 million men, women and children: they are bound to
increase if left without treatment and without those financial, scientific and
human resources required for the necessary prevention and therapy.
The power of numbers and the suffering of many
men and women in sub-Saharan Africa show how prevention measures, if separated
from the therapy, are not sufficient to stop a pandemic that costs as much as
a world war in terms of human lives lost.
HIV/AIDS multiplies poverty. Not only
does it humiliate and shorten a person's life, but it also shuts the door to
hope and to the future, crushing the lives of young men and women and adults
alike, swallowing the knowledge and professionalism, which are the vital roots
of any true future.
Together with the rest of the world, we hope
that this disease will be defeated by a vaccine, like many others. But it
could be too late for Africa. The therapy that allows people to coexist with
the virus, and to live well too, is available, but only to the rich world. The
right to live, however, cannot depend on geography.
The right to the therapy is a new human
right; it is the human right that Africa is a reminder of to luckier
countries. For this reason, we ask the most developed countries in the world,
and those people who bear the power to make decisions in this field, for help,
to offer access as soon as possible in Africa to the therapy, with those high
standards of quality that this challenge requires.
We ask for the costs of antiretroviral drugs
and whatever else is necessary to diagnose and treat the disease to be
decreased to costs compatible with the limited resources of our countries.
We ask the most developed countries to mobilize human and economical resources
truly capable of stopping this slaughter. We ask for this in the name of that
human right called the right to be treated. We ask for this in the name of an
intelligent globalisation, capable of globalising solidarity as well.
We offer every government, every company,
every man and every woman of good will a new alliance to fight against
HIV/AIDS in Africa. For a future with a human face. For everybody.
|
