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Gore outlines new effort to fight AIDS

UNITED NATIONS: With AIDS the No. 1 killer in sub-Saharan Africa, killing 10 times more Africans than war, US vice-President Al Gore has pledged to put the continents' AIDS crisis on the world's security agenda and outlined a new US effort of fight the epidemic.

President over the first Security Council meeting to address a health issue, Gore announced on Monday that the White House has asked Congress for $150 million for vaccine research and prevention programmes in Africa and will convene a meeting of business leaders in Africa to start developing prevention programmes in the workplace.

"We tend to think of a threat to security in terms of war and peace," Gore said in the first speech by a US vice-prescient to the 15-member body. "Yet no one can doubt that the havoc wreaked and the toll exacted by HIV/AIDS do threaten our security".

AIDS is now the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where poverty and wars have already taken a heavy toll. In 1998, 200,000 people died as a result of armed conflicts in Africa, compared to about 2.2 million from AIDS.

US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke scoffed at reporters suggestions that Gore was using his UN appearance to further his campaign for the Democratic for president.

"None of what he's doing here today has any direct impact on the present phase of the primary season, which is intense and being conducted in two states which are far away from here," Holbrooke said.

He added that the White House has approached several members of Congress about the request for the extra $150 million in the proposed budget and that "support has been quite strong".

Several African ministers of health addressed the open meeting, thanking Gore for the pledge of new money and describing in detail how desperately it was needed.

Namibia's Health Minister, Dr Libertine Amathila, said AIDS was devastating her country's economy, robbing families of breadwinners and children of their parents.

"It is immoral that the worst affected continent has the lowest access to care," she said, urging wealthy countries make drugs to treat those infected with HIV available it prices Africans can afford.

She cited statistics from UNAIDS, a Geneva-based organisation of epidemiologists and statisticians who study AIDS, that show only $165 million was spent on AIDS prevention in Africa in 1996, while estimates suggest that between $800 million and $2.5 billion a year is needed.

"It is worth pondering how the international community successfully mobilised hundreds of billions of dollars over the last few years to minimise the impact of that 'other virus' Ñ Y2K," the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Dr Peter Piot, told the council.

An estimated 23.3 million African south of the Sahara currently have HIV or AIDS, UN statistics show.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan said high AIDS death rates among Africa's elite, including public servants, threatened the ability of some countries to govern effectively. High infection rates among police and armed forces also have left African countries ill-equipped to face security threats, he said.

Last month, Annan invited dozens or representatives from Africa, UN agencies, donor governments, voluntary organisations and businesses to draw up a plan to reduce infection rates in Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 by 25 percent before 2005.

He invited the Security Council to join the effort.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn said such a partnership was the only way to combat the epidemic effectively. APP