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Youth hold key to curbing HIV/AIDS, UNICEF says

In an opening address at the National Press Club marking the eleventh annual observance of World AIDS Day, she said the future course of the HIV/AIDS pandemic lies in the hands of young people. “It is absolutely vital that we do everything necessary to arm them with the knowledge they need to protect themselves and their communities,” she said.

According to statistics released last week by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), of the 6 million people infected this year with the virus that causes AIDS, half are between the ages of 15 and 24 – the equivalent of nearly five young men and women every minute.

The growing toll on young people – and their largely untapped power to mobilise an effective response – moved UNAIDS and its partners and co-sponsors, including UNICEF, to focus the 1998 World AIDS Campaign on the role of young people as a “force for change”. Ms. Bellamy said HIV/AIDS was “well on its way to wiping out the substantial reductions in child mortality that were achieved in the 1980s and in the first part of this decade,” adding that “the disease seems all but certain to produce 40 million new orphans by early next century.” Yet the enormity of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the developing world, she said, remains obscured in a tangle of inaction and denial.

Breaking the “conspiracy of silence” surrounding HIV/AIDS in the developing world must begin with governments summoning “the political will to launch a massive campaign of prevention aimed at those most vulnerable to HIV – the poor, the powerless, and the voiceless, especially children and young people,” she said.

“This involves not only informing people, but generating dialogue and debate that draws on the natural energy, idealism and commitment of young people.”

She said the effort must include two elements: a vast HIV-information campaign targeted at young people – and global access to voluntary and confidential HIV testing and counselling.

Ms. Bellamy said the spread of HIV/AIDS in the developing world is a medical and social emergency that grows out of a wholesale violation of the fundamental rights of young people and children – rights already recognized by the 191 nations that have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

She said young people are bearing a disproportionate share of the suffering because, at a time of sexual awakening, “they are deprived of the right to health services and nutrition, to a safe and supportive environment free of exploitation and abuse – including protection from coerced sex,” and the right “to participate and to make their views heard in matters that affect them.”

“When these rights are denied,” Ms. Bellamy said, “people cannot obtain the information and life skills they need to avoid HIV infection – and they are deprived of access to HIV testing, which is essential if the disease is to be contained.”

She noted that in the United States and other industrialized countries, “the use of an elaborate drug regimen has helped contain the spread of the virus. But those drugs are expensive – and certainly far beyond the means of people in the developing countries.” “The new UNAIDS figures show the extreme urgency of the situation,” she said. “And those numbers are framed by one terrible, inescapable fact – that it is young people, people up to the age of 24, who are bearing the brunt of the casualties.” The new UNAIDS figures also show that more women are becoming HIV/AIDS casualties. Females made up 41 per cent of all infected adults last year; this year, they represent 43 per cent. The implications for children are obvious.

One-tenth of the people infected this year are under the age of 15, which brings the number of HIV-positive children now alive to 1.2 million – most of whom probably got the virus from the mothers.

Ms. Bellamy said vulnerable countries need assistance and resources to build health systems capable of coping with the effects of the disease, including measures that will help reduce the risk that mothers already infected with the virus will transmit it to their infants.

“Poor countries need more than encouragement,” she said. “They need income support, debt relief and strong social safety nets."

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