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The international community has a unique opportunity to change the course of history by using HIV/AIDS treatment programmes to strengthen existing prevention efforts and improve health systems, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
In its World Health Report 2004, due for release next week, WHO warns that more people than ever are dying of HIV/AIDS, despite increased finance and heightened awareness of the pandemic.
The report, "Changing History", says HIV/AIDS is already undermining the UN's Millennium goals of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, achieving universal primary education, and reducing maternal and infant mortality and the spread of other diseases.
The WHO warned that "although it has seemed a familiar enemy for the last 20 years, HIV/AIDS is only now beginning to be seen for what it is: a unique threat to human society, whose impact will be felt for generations to come."
The report is available on the WHO web site at:
www.who.int/whr
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
