G8 AIDS promise inadequate - activists

Nongovernmental organisations have said the global battle against HIV/AIDS needs more than just promises from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations.

At the end of the meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, G8 members adopted a document offering to tackle infectious diseases by increasing awareness, prevention and universal access to treatment by 2010.

However, campaigners said wealthy nations should also improve AIDS funding or they would miss their own target, set last year at the summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, of providing treatment to four million Africans by 2010.

Reuters quoted Max Lawson, an Oxfam policy adviser, as saying, "Basically, we have slightly stronger words than [at last year's summit] at Gleneagles but are still seriously short on the cash."

Although G8 leaders had finally made good on their promise last year of an "immediate doubling" of aid to US$50 billion annually, they had only now begun implementing their initial pledge.