World AIDS Day: Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise

HIV continues to be a great threat for public health around the world, despite the medical advanced during the last years in some countries”, explains the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) during the World AIDS Day 2008.

“If there is something more deadly than HIV is the complacency related to it”, indicates Dr. Mukesh Kapila, the IFRC’s Special Representative for HIV.

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has the strong conviction of the importance to remind the international community that the fight against HIV has not been won yet and that in some zones the pandemic is on the rise, being women and children especially vulnerable.

“The fight against stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV must continue to be a priority. Likewise, IFRC works in its own lines through the ‘Red Cross Red Crescent +’ network, integrated by volunteers and staff members living with HIV, in that way the Red Cross and Red Crescent is a place where everyone feels included”, comments Dr. Mukesh.

In August 2008, the International Federation launched an appeal for 19,46 million dollars (22,3 million Swiss Francs) to finance the HIV programme in the Americas for the period of 2008 – 2010 that covers the 10 Red Cross National Societies in the Caribbean, Central America and South America: Argentina, Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras and Jamaica.

This programme has as objective to reduce the vulnerability against HIV and its impact by preventing the infection; increasing the support, care and treatment; reducing the stigma and discrimination related to HIV; as well as strengthening the capacities of National Societies to carry out and expand HIV programmes.

“Our community-based approach is the most effective way to ensure that funds go directly to those who need them the most. This approach is cost-effective and it is based entirely in supporting communities to address their own challenges” adds Dr. Kapila.

The programme represents a great expansion of the Red Cross efforts to address HIV in the region and it aims to reach more than 7,000,000 people, by the end of 2010.

Poverty, discrimination and marginalization (including gender inequality) or environmental factors create vulnerability and increase the risk of infection of HIV among people. Women are particularly vulnerable to HIV due to cultural factors, their economic dependence to men and the sexual violence they undergo.

Even though, the highest HIV incidence is registered in Africa, the IFRC is also scaling-up its HIV programmes in other parts of the world, particularly in Asia, the Americas and Eastern Europe; where there is still a lot to be done to inform vulnerable groups about the risk of HIV. “The persistence of the stigma and discrimination of those who live with HIV is inacceptable in every community trying to address the challenge of HIV”, concludes Bernard Gardiner, head of the IFRC’s HIV Global Programme in Geneva.

IFRC is taking actions to support the people living with HIV and that are also affected by food insecurity, disasters and health crisis, as they can be the worse affected by such situations.

In Latin America, in 2007, new HIV infections summed up an estimated figure of 140,000, by which the total number of people living with HIV in Latin America increased to 1,700,000. During the same year, it was estimated that 63,000 people died due to AIDS in the region.

The global infection rates of HIV in Latin America registered few changes in the last decade. The main sources of HIV transmission are observed in men who have sex with men, sex workers and, to a lesser extent, users of injectable drugs.