(Nov. 21, 2012) The United Nations on Tuesday announced Myanmar’s opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi as an ambassador to its program on HIV/AIDS. Suu Kyi accepted the
invitation to head the program during a meeting with UNAIDS executive director Michel
Sidibé in the capital Naypyidaw, according to an agency statement. “It is a great
honour to be chosen as a champion for people who live on the fringes of society and
struggle every day to maintain their dignity and basic human rights,” Suu Kyi said
in the statement. “I would like to be the voice of the voiceless,” added Suu Kyi,
who has previously been named as the agency’s global advocate for zero discrimination.
Sidibé said in a statement that the Nobel laureate was an appropriate choice for
the role. She is inspirational as from small villages to big cities, from Africa
to Asia, people are talking about Aung San Suu Kyi.” Eamonn Murphy, country director
for UNAIDS in Myanmar, said he was happy that Suu Kyi had accepted the role. “She
would be the voice of HIV- and AIDS-infected people who have no voices,” he told ucanews
on Tuesday in an interview in Yangon. Murphy said earlier this year Suu Kyi
addressed an international conference via video link to express her support for those
living with HIV/AIDS. Suu Kyi said that discrimination has “created an environment
of fear that prevents people from accessing life-saving HIV services.”She added: “In
Myanmar we are currently treating more than 40,000 people living with HIV. It is important
that everyone who suspects they may be at risk seeks an HIV test and knows their HIV
status early, so they can prevent new infections and can access life-saving treatment
when needed.” An estimated 216,000 people, 36 percent of them women, were living with
HIV in Myanmar in 2011, according to the Global AIDS Response Progress Report for
2012.An estimated 18,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses last year, with new
infections estimated at more than 8,000.