UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the international community on Thursday to intensify its efforts to meet the millennium development goal ( MDGs) of reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

In a message to mark the World AIDS Day, Annan stressed the urgency to step up efforts to fight the spread of the AIDS epidemic. "For halting the spread of AIDS is not only a millennium development goal in itself, it is a prerequisite for reaching most of the others," he said.

Other MDGs include the development targets to reduce extreme poverty and a range of other ills set by world leaders at the millennium summit in 2000.

Noting that the resources and the institutional machinery are available for such an intensified effort, Annan said that there was currently about 8 billion US dollars available for AIDS efforts in developing countries annually, compared to 300 million dollars a decade ago.

With signs of progress in almost every region of the world and new commitments made at the September UN summit, he said: "We have real evidence that AIDS is a problem with a solution."

"So, this is a time to concentrate our minds. It is a time to recognize that although our response so far has succeeded in some of the particulars, it has yet to match the epidemic in scale," he stressed.

The United Nations will also hold a large gathering to mark the World AIDS Day Thursday night at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. The event is co-sponsored by UNAIDS and the UN Department of Public Information, in collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Up to 2,000 people are expected to attend the gathering to honor progress made in the battle against AIDS, to renew commitments made to tackle the epidemic, and to expand on the Day's theme: "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise."

Artists and advocates will join people living with HIV at the event, for which the keynote speaker will be Jan Eliasson, president of the UN General Assembly.

Source: Xinhua