Disease is a human rights issue, Robinson tells delegates

IRELAND: HIV/AIDS is a human rights issue, not just a medical issue, according to the former president, Mrs Mary Robinson. Human rights must be placed at the centre of any response to the growing world epidemic.

Mrs Robinson spoke yesterday on the second day of the two-day ministerial conference on HIV/AIDS at Dublin Castle. She delivered the keynote address to a group debate on disease prevention initiatives. "HIV and AIDS is a serious human rights issue, something that gets forgotten," she told delegates. It was essential that "we address the issue as a human rights issue".

She wanted "not rhetoric and words but real action" to come from the conference, given the global dimension of the looming world epidemic. Many countries, including Western societies, had failed to respond adequately to the crisis, hence the growth in new infections.

"The increases in new HIV infections, the number of young people affected and the changing pattern of infection from injecting drug use to sexual transmission imply that prevention efforts have been hugely inadequate," she told delegates.

She referred to the rapid rise of cases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but also to the 600,000 now living with AIDS in Western Europe.

There remained, however, a "great opportunity" to change the trajectory of the epidemic in these regions. The results would be human lives saved but also a reduction in the heavy financial burden associated with the disease.

Gender equality should also be a part of the human rights approach to HIV/AIDS, she stated.

"It is a human rights imperative that prevention information, confidential counselling and testing, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and comprehensive drug and anti-retroviral treatment be available to men and women equally."

Mrs Robinson addressed delegates as the executive director of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative, a New York City based non-governmental organisation.