Prevention and care: revitalizing the Global AIDS effort.
Int Conf AIDS 1994 Aug 7-12; 10:52 (abstract no. TS4) Mann JM; Harvard School of Public Health, MA.
The global AIDS effort must be revitalized. The first decade has been difficult and tragic, yet it has also witnessed extraordinary courage and commitment. Despite these enormous efforts, the gap between the expanding HIV/AIDS pandemic and the response is growing rapidly and dangerously, efforts in prevention and care are becoming fragmented, the disparity between rich and poor is increasing, and HIV remains disconnected and isolated from a broad vision of health. Vast global experience and new knowledge, along with the limited success of the current approach, mandate a new global AIDS strategy. A new strategy is the highest priority. This requires a redefinition of HIV/AIDS, for how a problem is defined determines what is done. HIV prevention efforts must reduce vulnerability to HIV, by supporting each person's ability to learn about HIV/AIDS and to apply--fully and freely--this knowledge to their lives. From this perspective, vulnerability to HIV has personal, programmatic and societal dimensions. A new global AIDS strategy must go beyond personal and program-based approaches to address directly and reduce societal vulnerability, which derives from discrimination, marginalization and other manifestations of non-respect for human rights and dignity. Therefore, a new global AIDS strategy based on an understanding of the inextricable relationship between health and human rights is both the precious result of a decade of struggle against HIV/AIDS, and a unique opportunity to promote health as a central value in the modern world.
Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV Infections, Human Rights, HIV Seropositivity, HIV Long-Term Survivors, Human, prevention & control, ICA10 940807
TS4
