Leaders must integrate young people more closely into fight against HIV - Annan

Leaders must integrate young people more closely into fight against HIV - 
Annan

28 October – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on 
national leaders to integrate the group most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection 
- young people - more fully into the worldwide fight against the pandemic.

"National leaders must make programmes for young people a priority," he said 
yesterday in a message to the second annual YouthAIDS benefit gala in New 
York. "We must maximize the participation of young people in prevention and 
care. We must work for a massive increase in education programmes and 
services for young people - especially for girls, orphans and other 
vulnerable children."

Half of today's new HIV infections are among the young, but young people also 
have been at the forefront of successful prevention programmes, he said.

"Wherever they have been empowered with the knowledge, skills and means to 
protect themselves, they have succeeded in battling HIV. They can bring to 
their peers convincing messages about safe sexual behaviour. And, in the most 
affected parts of the world, young people are compassionate and responsible 
caregivers to sick patients," he said.

In a video message Sunday to the 11th international conference of people 
living with HIV/AIDS, Mr. Annan said the people who were affected had learnt 
that treatment had to be part of any successful response to AIDS and had 
shown how effectively they could devise and carry out strategies for 
prevention and care.

The people living with AIDS also had stood up admirably as "leaders in the 
struggle against stigma, silence and discrimination," he told the conference 
in Kampala, Uganda.

"The good news is, governments are starting to understand all this, too," Mr. 
Annan said. "All governments have now declared their commitment to engaging 
people living with HIV/AIDS as full partners in their struggle against it."


SOURCE: United Nations, New York