UN Foundation - Wire News

Monday, March 06, 2000

HIV/AIDS: UNAIDS Launches New Campaign Focusing On Men

The United Nations launched a new global HIV/AIDS campaign in New Delhi today, focusing on raising awareness among men and their role in fighting the spread of the disease.

UNAIDS says that men can change the course of the epidemic. "All over the world, women find themselves at special risk of HIV infection because of their lack of power to determine where, when and how sex takes place," UNAIDS notes in a report released today. "What is less recognized, however, is that the cultural beliefs and expectations that make this the case also heighten men's own vulnerability."

UNAIDS notes that HIV infections and AIDS deaths are more common among men than women on every continent except Africa. And young men are more at risk than older ones: men under the age of 25 comprise approximately one-fourth of those infected with HIV.

"The time is ripe to start seeing men not as some kind of problem, but as part of the solution", said Peter Piot, the executive director of UNAIDS. "Working with men to change some of their attitudes and behaviors has enormous potential to slow down the epidemic and to improve the lives of men themselves, their families and their partners."

The report cites "harmful concepts of masculinity" and argues that changing attitudes and behaviors including the way men perceive risk and sexuality is a necessary part of the effort to curb the AIDS epidemic. "Too often it is seen as 'unmanly' to worry about avoiding drug-related risks or to bother with condoms," Piot explains.

Worldwide, men tend to have more sex partners than women, UNAIDS notes, thereby increasing their own and their primary partners' risk of HIV infection. Men are often less likely to seek health care than women. In addition, male violence drives the spread of HIV. The report notes that behavioral changes among men can help stem the epidemic. Thailand has had success in its efforts to promote HIV/AIDS prevention among army recruits, and college students in many countries, including the United States, are delaying their first sexual encounters and using condoms more consistently.

The new campaign is designed to complement prevention programs for women and girls.

In an interview with the BBC, Piot notes that until now, scant attention has been focused on changing male sexual behavior. He says it is important to address sexual attitudes and behaviors from a very young age.

Asia's Epidemic

Piot also explains why the campaign was launched in India: "We wanted to draw the attention to the fact that AIDS is also becoming a major problem in India and that in general in Asia, the epidemic is still at an early stage but we have a real window of opportunity to prevent Asia from going the way that Africa is now in terms of AIDS" (BBC World Update, 6 Mar. Note: You may need to download free software to access this audio link).

The Asia-Pacific region is home to approximately 20% of the world's HIV infections. India has the most HIV infections in the world -- an estimated 3.7 million Indians have HIV or AIDS.

Almost 50% of Bangladesh's 120 million people have premarital sex and 300,000 visit sex workers every day despite growing risks of contracting HIV/AIDS, a UN official warned today. Swarup Sarkar, who heads the UNAIDS program in Bangladesh, challenged the argument that AIDS could be more effectively controlled in regions like South Asia, where premarital sex and multiple sex partners are relatively taboo.