World AIDS day: UN Calls for Intensified Global Efforts
December 01, 2012: World Aids Day was observed on Saturday. UN Secretary General,
Ban Ki Moon on the occasion acknowledged the significant progress made over the years,
but called for intensified global efforts to put HIV in the pages of history. His
message said: The Millennium Development Goal for HIV/AIDS is clear: to halt and
begin to reverse the epidemic by 2015. Thanks to the determined efforts of Governments
and civil society, success is in sight. The UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report for 2012
reveals significant progress in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in the past two years.
The number of people accessing life-saving treatment rose by 60 per cent and new infections
have fallen by half in 25 countries — 13 of them in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS-related
deaths have dropped by a quarter since 2005. Half the global reductions in new
HIV infections in the last two years have been among new-born babies. I urge Member
States to intensify their efforts to eliminate mother-to-child transmission, and to
work to ensure all HIV-positive mothers can survive and thrive. I also urge stronger
efforts to eliminate the stigma and discrimination that increase risk for vulnerable
populations. The Report of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, “Risks, Rights
and Health”, emphasizes how outmoded laws, misguided judiciary systems and punitive
policing practices, — based not on science, but on fear and prejudice — fuel the epidemic.
We must make information, testing and treatment available to all, so every man, woman
and child can enjoy their fundamental right to the medical care and essential services
that will end this devastating epidemic. Zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination
and zero AIDS-related deaths by 2015 are achievable. On this World AIDS Day, let
us commit to build on and amplify the encouraging successes of recent years to consign
HIV/AIDS to the pages of history.