UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years166 The Barcelona conferenceIn July 2002, the 14 th International AIDS meeting was held in Barcelona and access totreatment was a priority topic. At the opening ceremony, Piot told an audience of thousandsthat it was now clear that the AIDS epidemic was still in its early stages – and the responsewas at an even earlier stage. He told them: “Ten billion dollars annually is all that it will takefor a credible minimum response to the epidemic. Yet that sum is three times more than isavailable today …”.Piot explained that treatment was now technically feasible everywhere in the world andwarned against viewing prevention and care as competing priorities. He then presenteda road map of what was required to keep the promises made on AIDS (at UNGASS). “So,let’s make the AIDS response truly political. Let’s bring forward today world leaders whokeep their promises on AIDS, are rewarded with our trust, and those who don’t, lose theirjobs to those who will”.Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO at the time, made a significant announcementat the conference: “We are aiming for three million people world-wide to be able toaccess ARVs [antiretrovirals] by 2005 – around half of those who will need such treatment.The current total of people in low-income countries on treatment is around 230 000 andover half of these are from one country, Brazil. It is a promising start, but we have muchfurther to go”.Some donors might not have entirely endorsed these sentiments, but the activists, out inforce, certainly did. They were calling for more access to treatment.‘… your advocacy has to be that the current level of funding is shamefully inadequateand suggests some evidence of planned failure through underfunding … “thanks, butnot nearly enough” should be the standard response to donors’ miserly donations … theFund has to become the major player for a coordinated, universal access response to theseglobal pandemics’ 28 .The Network of People Living with HIV in Asia urged national governments to accord thema greater voice in policy, decision-making and all other aspects of the responses againstthe epidemic. When Tommy Thompson, US Secretary of Health and Human Services, cameon to speak, he was jeered and heckled. Activists stormed the stage with banners accusingthe USA of the ‘murder and neglect’ of people living with AIDS.28Baker B K (2002). ‘Letter to Richard Feachem’. Health Gap, 26 June.