Annan demands more action against HIV/AIDS

UN Secretary General warned that HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths increased last year.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday warned that HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths increased last year, despite growing international efforts to stop the spread of the disease.

"It is clear that the epidemic continues to outrun our efforts to contain it," said Annan, speaking to a one-day forum in the UN General Assembly. "If we are to reach the millennium development goal of halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, then we must do much, much more," he said.

Delegates from 120 countries, including 40 health ministers, have gathered at UN headquarters in New York to review progress on goals set by the General Assembly in 2001, which aim to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS through timed targets.

The conference is meant to lay out steps to reach those targets, which include reducing the number of new infections and increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs.

Annan praised efforts by international organisations such as UNAIDS and the Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to make anti-retroviral drugs more available in poor countries, but he called on countries receiving aid to establish a comprehensive AIDS action plan.

Annan said more resources and better leadership are also needed to combat HIV/AIDS, along with improving the status of women, who now account for almost half of all people living with HIV worldwide.