UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years98Seventh Cosponsor joins UNAIDSIn April 1999, the United Nations International Drug Control Programme(UNDCP) joined UNAIDS as its seventh Cosponsor – an important move as,in so many countries, HIV infection is transmitted through needles shared byinjecting drug users.In December 1999, it was estimated that more than 10% of HIV infectionsworldwide (nearly 3.5 million people) could be attributed to injecting druguse; injecting drug use was identified as a leading cause of the increase in HIVinfections in the Central Asian and Eastern European region.Kathleen Cravero, then UNAIDS’ Deputy Executive Director, said in a speechin March 2002: “When UNDCP joined UNAIDS as our seventh Cosponsor in1999, it marked a recognition of the close connection between issues of drug useand the HIV epidemic. Not only did it serve to strengthen in a practical way thecapacity both of UNDCP and of UNAIDS to tackle the linkage between HIVand drug use, it also sent a signal to the world that this issue was high on theagenda of the United Nations”.For some time, UNDCP – which later became the UN Office on Drugs andCrime (UNODC) – had been active in supporting HIV prevention programmes,particularly targeting young people and other high risk groups, such as injectingdrug users.A significant step was the appearance of a UN position paper in September2000 on preventing the transmission of HIV among drug users. According toPiot, “this [was] the first United Nations system position paper on this criticalissue – where United Nations agencies jointly demonstrate a clear and strongcommitment to HIV prevention among drug abusers … The paper demonstratesthat … we [the UN system] now agree that the drug demand reduction andharm reduction are complementary and mutually supportive approaches,providing a continuum of options” 1 .UNODC’s decision to provide support to prison populations in 2004 can beseen as a breakthrough moment for the UN response to AIDS. Prisons and othercustodial settings are breeding grounds for infectious diseases. A high proportionof inmates are in prison for drug-related crimes and find ways to continue1Interview with Peter Piot in UN ODCCP Update, June 2001.