The United Nations is to set a range of targets for tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis, including the development of national strategies in each member-state, wider and cheaper availability of medicines and a 50 per cent reduction by the end of the decade in the number of infants infected with HIV.
The aims are part of a 22-page document due to emerge from this week's special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, which was in the final stages of negotiation last night. Western countries reportedly yielded to objections from Muslim countries over references specifying groups considered especially vulnerable, such as homosexuals and prostitutes.
Instead of a reference to "men who have sex with men" the document now refers simply to those who are at risk due to "sexual practice". Prostitutes are referred to as people vulnerable to infection because of "livelihood" and prisoners are described as those at risk because of "institutional location".
Speaking at the end of the three-day special session, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said it had been "a truly historic event" both because of the level of attendance and the contents of the declaration.
He acknowledged that "some painful differences" had come out into the open. "But that is the best place for them. Like AIDS itself, these differences need to be confronted head-on, not swept under the carpet. I feel even more confident today than I did three days ago that we can defeat this deadly disease," Mr Annan said. "It is a fight in which everyone must get involved."
The session had been unique in attracting not just government ministers and officials but AIDS activists, development workers and representatives from the private sector.
Participation at local and national level was essential to maintain the momentum, Mr Annan said.
Mr Annan was yesterday nominated unanimously by the UN Security Council, including Ireland, for a second five-year term in the position of Secretary-General.