Political commitment crucial in fighting AIDS
By T. Sima Gunawan
CHIANG MAI, Thailand (JP): Political leadership and commitment are crucial in the fight against the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), an Australian expert told a regional conference yesterday.
Don Gremes, chairman of the Australian National Council on AIDS, told the third Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific that politicians must make a commitment to enacting legislation, providing funding and creating an environment conducive to efforts to combat AIDS.
Without political commitment there will not be sufficient AIDS funding, while legislation cannot protect people who have AIDS or have been infected with the virus, Gremes said.
The conference was opened by Thai Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn on Sunday afternoon. Some 2,000 scientists, academics, activists and government officials are taking part in the event, which will continue until Thursday.
Gremes said that continuous political commitment is required to reduce the prejudice and intolerance to which people infected with HIV are subjected.
"We need the commitment to accept the fact that AIDS exists and the world has the disease, and to make policies to cope with that situation," he said.
Political leadership is important in overcoming difficulties through open discussion, he said. Without such political leadership efforts to combat AIDS will fail, he added.
Measure against AIDS must involve the whole community, not only those suffering from the disease or carrying the virus, Gremes said.
Australia currently spends A$130 million per annum on the fight against AIDS, with 10 percent being spent on medical research.
In its efforts to curb the spread of the virus, Australia has made "unpopular but necessary decisions," Gremes said, including providing free syringe exchange facilities for drug addicts, introducing school education programs about sex and the use of condoms and legalizing homosexuality.
Thai Deputy Minister of Public Health Sora-at Klinpratoomof called for international solidarity to fight AIDS.
"It is both necessary and urgent for countries to cooperate closely with one and another to develop a variety of measures and methods based on the capacity of each country," he said.
"It is our obligation as political leaders to utilize our available resources to better combat the epidemic," he added.
He said Thailand has been able to actively involve every section of the society in the anti-AIDS campaign because of strong political commitment at the national and international level.
The need for political commitment and international cooperation was also raised by speakers from Japan, China and India in yesterday's session. Indonesian Minister of Health Sujudi, who had been scheduled to speak at the meeting, was not present.
Moderator of the plenary session, Michael Merson from Yale University, said that people should be realistic in their expectations about the efforts to combat AIDS, given that a vaccine against and cure for the disease are still distant dreams.
"It is very hard to deal with the problem," Merson said.
"But it is going to be much harder if we continue to face discrimination and if political leaders are not going to face up to the challenge before them and really speak about the disease openly, frankly," he told the press later yesterday.
"What we have and what we are going to have in the long term is behavior change, which is not easy," he said.
"In the U.S., despite what we know about healthy diet to keep the cholesterol down, it takes a long time to change behavior... And now we are talking about sexual behavior -- and you can imagine how much more difficult that is," he added.