Japan urged to redouble efforts in fighting HIV/AIDS

The head of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department Monday called on Japan to redouble its efforts in the fight against the AIDS disease.

Jim Yong Kim, the department's director, said Japan's recent pledge of 500 million US dollars to a global fund aimed at fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and an extra 5 billion dollars to work on health and development issues is "fantastic".

As for a UN goal of giving anti-HIV therapy to 3 million patients in developing countries around the world by the end of 2005, known as "the 3 by 5" initiative, Kim said it is unlikely for the organization to meet the deadline but expected the target will be achieved "in months rather than years" after 2005.

Kim made the remarks at a press conference during the seventh International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Kobe, west Japan.

"All the elements are in place for the real acceleration in the next six months. There has been a tremendous amount of training being done," Kim said. "We're very optimistic about what is going to happen before the end of the year," he said.

The director, however, declined to set the new deadline for achieving the goal beyond 2005, saying the WHO will make a decision, possibly in December or January.

Kim also welcomed a recent agreement by finance ministers of the Group of Eight countries on a goal to provide universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment by 2010.

Kim said the Asia-Pacific countries have better infrastructures for the delivery of treatment than countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and expressed confidence that the region can meet the goal, depending on "political will" of country leaders.

Seth Berkley, head of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, a non-governmental organization dedicated to accelerating the development of a vaccine for the disease, said at the press conference that the Asia-Pacific region has enormous technology and scientific capabilities to manufacture drugs for the disease.

He especially urged that Japanese scientists, who have conducted long-standing research on this area, will contribute to the global efforts to develop the vaccine.

"My appeal is really to make sure that Japan is a partner of the rest of the world in moving these important technologies forward scientifically, industrially as well as politically," Berkley said. He also hoped that Japan will make pledges on its vaccine efforts at the G-8 summit in Scotland from Wednesday.

Source: Xinhua