Lewis warns of new year AIDS escalation

Africa's HIV/AIDS pandemic could worsen in 2006 if developed nations do not deliver on their financial pledges, Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, warned on Monday. Speaking at the east African and Indian Ocean regional meeting for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in the Rwandan capital Kigali, Lewis said the fund had only received US $3.6 billion - half of what it needs to fund programmes in 2006 and 2007. "There's a steadily diminishing lack of commitment on the part of the world to release money for the Global Fund. Tremendous pressure must be put on the G8 [Group of Eight leading industrial countries] to deliver the dollars which they have promised," said the special envoy. Lewis warned that HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention and care programmes on the continent would start losing out next year if rich nations do not release the money they have promised.