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The world should have responded to HIV/AIDS the way it united to contain SARS in 2003, the former director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland said recently in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, "put the world on high alert, and drove unprecedented cooperation" across borders.
She was quoted by a local newspaper, the Star Tribune, as saying: "The way the world responded to SARS was global public health at its best. People put aside differences to share experiences and resources ... in four months we had identified and contained a disease that could have been a global catastrophe."
Brundtland called for a similar effort in tackling HIV/AIDS, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
