The world needs to "scale up" its early treatment of HIV - particularly in women and children - to have an AIDS-free generation within reach, former U.S. president Bill Clinton said on Wednesday. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), recent years have seen a steady fall in the number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses, with some 1.5 million people dying in 2013 compared to 2.4 million people in 2005.
Speaking at the Aids 2014 conference in the Australian city of Melbourne Wednesday, Clinton said the world was on a "steady march" to rule out AIDS but, with an estimated 20,000 children a month still being infected and stigma on the increase, much still needed to be done, Reuters reported.
His speech, which attracted more than 2,000 people, including hundreds of scientists, activists and journalists at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, was briefly delayed by protesters holding placards, calling for a global financial transaction, or "Robin Hood" tax, to fund the fight against HIV and AIDS. "This is called a conference but I think it's really a movement. That's why it's OK if someone stands up and has their say," he said.
"We should no longer have any doubts, nor should anyone else, that we have the ability to see this effort through to the end," said Clinton, resuming his speech.
Although the expansion of HIV treatment had made great strides in reaching millions of people, every year more than 2 million people - about four a minute - were newly infected, he said, adding that finding and treating people with HIV early-on, and delivering care in hard-to reach rural places was part of the big challenge.
In particular, poor countries must be supported to meet specific goals over the next three to five years, the Guardian reported. The transmission of HIV must drastically be reduced by countries through breastfeeding, ensuring babies born with HIV receive immediate treatment, and identifying and treating children infected with HIV in the past decade, Clinton said, whose family charity, Health Access Initiative, mainly helps in targeting the poor.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS can be transmitted via blood, breast milk and by semen during sex, but can be kept in check with cocktails of drugs known as antiretroviral therapy, according to Reuters. "As many as 50 percent of all new pediatric infections occur during the breastfeeding period," Clinton said. "So, keeping these women in care until the end of breastfeeding is perhaps the single most important thing we can do to achieve an AIDS-free generation. It's our big remaining barrier."
Meanwhile, Clinton also stressed on the fact that HIV was a high income problem, noting that the number of infections among younger men having sex with men is on the rise in the U.S.
He ended his speech, calling for a redoubling of efforts to combat stigma and prejudice which have been blamed for the high levels of HIV in the most high-risk groups: sex workers, gay men, prisoners, injecting drug users and transgender people.
