Subject: POLITICAL INITIATIVES OF THE TRANSNATION RADICAL PARTY
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(11) POLITICAL INITIATIVES OF THE TRANSNATION RADICAL PARTY
by Emma Bonino, Secretary of the Radical Party
Sofia, 15-18 July 1993, Radical Party General Council
(11) AIDS
SUMMARY: The global response to the Aids pandemia is still inadequate and
highly unrealistic. There is great controversy over the interventions and
the prevention strategies to be followed. It is necessary, above all, to
work towards harm reduction.
1) defence of persons with HIV and Aids, for the defence of their human
rights and the rejection of all forms of discrimination; a campaign to
convince states to provide better information and an efficient policy of
prevention and of control and monitoring of the measures adopted and their
consequences;
2) we must encourage the provision of medicines, promote the distribution
of condoms, encourage information in schools and in the media, ensure
adequate supplies of incontaminated blood in hospitals, implement syringe
exchange programmes for drug addicts, guarantee the right to health and
information in areas such as Africa and Asia, improve the status of women
and their right to safer sex, and reduce the imbalance in investments to
discourage mass emigration.
Institutional objectives:
1) The implementation and respect of the Convention on the Rights of
Children and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women (UN);
2) Emendment of the UN Convention against the illegal traffic of narcotics
and psychotropic substances (1988).
A pragmatic strategy
The first thing which strikes us in discussions of Aids is the rate of
growth of the phenomenon. More than 13 million people around the world have
been infected since the beginning of the epidemic. The highest number of
cases is still in sub-Saharian Africa, with more than eight million, but
the greatest increase last year was in Latin America and South-East Asia,
each with 1.5 million cases. Altogether, around three-quarters of the
people infected have contacted the disease in the course of sexual
relations, and heterosexual transmission is increasing. In Europe, the
exchange of infected syringes is responsible for one third of cases, 50%
more than in the mid-Eighties. Mother-child transmission is also
increasing: about one million cases so far.
The following are some of the most serious situations: in Thailand, at the
beginning of 1990 there were 50,000 cases of HIV, whilst at the end of 1992
the number had risen to 450,000, almost ten times higher (the assumption of
intravenous drugs is spreading in Asia, with the result that there is a
proliferation of transmission between heterosexuals who are not addicts);
in Zimbabwe alone 600,000 people have contacted the virus; in Abidjan, in
the Ivory Coast, between 10% and 12% of the adult population are affected;
in Eastern Europe, the economic crisis, the sudden political and social
changes, and the movement of entire populations have made it very difficult
to implement serious health and prevention programmes, causing a sharp rise
in the statistics (WHO figures).
The global response to the Aids pandemia is still inadequate and highly
unrealistic, and to approach the phenomenon in a pragmatic way, in a period
in which the institutions and the media are clearly less interested, may
seem to be an approach that goes against the current. In the light of this
general negligence and irrationality, it is not surprising that there is
controversy over which interventions and prevention strategies to adopt. It
is therefore necessary to promote the use of precautions and universal
behaviour in the face of Aids, above all by working towards risk reduction:
a clean syringe in exchange for a dirty syringe, methadone instead of
street heroin, safe sex rather than abstinence.
ACTION TO BE TAKEN
- intervention in defence of persons with HIV and Aids: their human rights
must be respected and no form of discrimination must be tolerated
(mechanisms of classification and segregation, like all coercive measures,
are unmotivated, whilst we must unfortunately note that in many Western
countries acts of discrimination continue to take place in the workplace,
against the immigrant population, and against prison inmates). If on one
hand persons with HIV and Aids have the right to non-discrimination,
governments must also provide adequate information on the progress of the
epidemic and must develop adequate prevention programmes: national and
supernational bodies must constantly monitor the short-term and long-term
consequences of the measures taken.
- provision of the currently used medicines, at reasonable prices, to
infected persons, wherever they may be.
- promotion and distribution of condoms among populations (in the absence
of completely effective means of prevention, the condom continues to be
"the least dangerous means possible").
- campaign for information and education in schools and in the media (in
that there are no longer easily identifiable high-risk categories such as
homosexuals, prostitutes, etc.).
- provision of guaranteed supplies of uncontaminated blood in hospitals.
- implementation of syringe exchange programmes for users of intravenous
drugs.
- campaign for the right to health and to information (whilst in other
areas there is some degree of debate on which measures to adopt, in Africa
and Asia there is a complete lack of debate).
- improvement of the status of women. In many parts of the world women are
not in a position to protect themselves from infection through a mere act
of will as they are unable to control or negotiate safe sex, including the
use of condoms.
- reduction of the imbalances in investments which ultimately encourage
mass emigration, drawing on the experience of the Western world to ensure
that countries which are currently in the throes of transformation do not
relax their guard.
In short, we must put an end to measures that do not work. We must face up
to the reality of risk reduction. We must prevent Aids from becoming like
cancer, that is a disease accepted as an act of God, only because those who
had the power to do something have lost interest and those who had no power
have had no choice.
THE COSTS
At the recent Congress in Berlin, the World Health Organization estimated
that it would cost 2.5 billion dollars a year to cause a turnaround in the
trend of the pandemia. This expediture (equivalent to a can of coca-cola
for every person in the world) must be considered as an investment with
potentially enormous returns: not only the direct costs of health spending
but also much greater indirect costs, especially the income lost through
death or illness. The WHO estimates that an investment 2.5 million dollars
a year would mean a saving of around 90 billion dollars in indirect costs
by the year 2000.
INSTITUTIONAL OBJECTIVES
Despite the global nature of the pandemia, at the moment there are no
international laws on Aids, a sign of the lack of consistency with which
the battle has been carried out so far. The absence of a legal framework
and of any international body with powers in both health and social terms
makes it difficult to identify an institutional objective. However, if we
face the question in a pragmatic manner, a number of paths can be taken.
- implementation and respect of the Convention on the Rights of Children
and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (UN).
- emendment of the United Nations Convention against the illegal traffic of
narcotics and psychotropic drugs (1988), with the aim of introducing a link
between Aids and the concept of reduction of health and social risk.
- campaign to give a special mandate to the WHO, and to make the resulting
recommendations on Aids strictly binding for member countries.
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