Tackling HIV/AIDS threats in the Asia-Pacific region

Alexander Downer, Canberra

The 7th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific which was held this week in Kobe, Japan, presented leaders of this region with an opportunity to refine and sharpen their responses to the battle against HIV. Already 8.2 million people with the virus live in the Asia Pacific region. Unless the rate of infection is turned around, it is estimated that in five years 40 percent of the world's new infections will be in this region.

For two decades Australia has been a world leader in the domestic fight against AIDS and now we are at the forefront of international efforts to reduce the spread of the disease in Asia Pacific. We have committed A$600 million until 2010 to counter HIV. I was pleased to announce last week that we will contribute an additional $5 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). This follows the $15 million announced earlier this month.

However money alone will not stop the epidemic. Strong leadership is also essential. This point was reinforced during the Congress by Australia's Special Representative on HIV/AIDS, Annmaree O'Keeffe, when she reminded participants that leadership is more than just the province of politicians, it must also come from community, business and religious leaders working together to win the fight against HIV/AIDS.

O'Keeffe was accompanied to the Congress by a team of Australian development specialists from the Australian Agency for International Development, AusAID, who met with delegations from the Asia Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, the Asian Development Bank, UNICEF, and high-level representatives from China and Papua New Guinea.

Harnessing the strengths of all interested parties will be critical in building a shared agenda for important prevention and treatment initiatives.

HIV/AIDS is as much a long-term development issue as a medical one. The virus has a firm grip in many developing countries and the relationship between HIV and poverty is stark. Poverty increases people's vulnerabilities to HIV, posing increased risks of infection, especially for women and girls.

It is estimated that over 60 percent of all global infections in 15-24 year olds are now young women. This is generally the result of women's lower social and economic status and lack of negotiating power.

Poverty is also a consequence of HIV. The AIDS epidemic strikes vehemently at those in the most productive years of life between 15 and 49 years of age. It does not discriminate between professions. When people become sick they are forced to leave the workforce.

Their incomes decline and families become strained by caring for orphans and the sick. We do not need a crystal ball to see how devastating the future consequences of HIV/AIDS may be -- we can see it today in Africa. By 2025, no-one under the age of 50 in Africa will remember a world without AIDS.

Closer to home, the spread of the disease in the Pacific is extremely worrying, especially in Papua New Guinea where it is estimated that more than 50,000 people are infected. In the region, only Cambodia has a higher prevalence rate. If present trends in Papua New Guinea continue, the country's labor force could be reduced by as much as 38 percent by 2020 and the budget deficit will increase by between 9 and 21 percent by 2020.

Australia is not prepared to passively watch the virus spread through neighboring countries and has been working with the Papua New Guinea National AIDS Council on strategies to educate and alert people, especially the most vulnerable, to the virus.

The global HIV/AIDS picture remains bleak. It is highly unlikely that an effective vaccine for HIV or cure for AIDS will become available in the next decade. However the good news is that people can be protected against the disease.

Although not a cure, antiretroviral treatments can prolong life for those living with the virus, and well targeted prevention education can be highly effective in reducing the spread of HIV, as we have seen in Australia. Communities can also be supported and supportive once stigma is reduced. The challenge is to ensure access to prevention, care and treatment services for the poorest in our region.

Prevention works best when it is accompanied by strong leadership. HIV transmission arises from intimate personal behaviors that are shaped by social norms and values. Challenging taboos regarding sex and community norms on issues such as the acceptability of sexual violence against women lie at the core of prevention.

With leadership on these issues and investment in prevention programs that target groups such as injecting drug users and highly mobile populations, the virus has less opportunity to spread. The tide can be turned. Australia will do its very best to help make this happen.

The writer is Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs.