Annan urges all to make good on vows to fight AIDS

In a World AIDS Day statement, Annan said achievements in raising the profile of the AIDS threat left no excuses for failure to directly combat the disease.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday that the time had come for world leaders to make good on their promises to curb the global spread of HIV/AIDS.

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In a World AIDS Day statement, Annan said achievements in raising the profile of the AIDS threat left no excuses for failure to directly combat the disease.

"In the course of the past decade, the world has made considerable progress in the fight against AIDS. It has also made considerable promises," Annan said.

"The time has come to keep them," he added.

Annan highlighted a substantial increase in funding, with $8 billion currently available for AIDS efforts in developing countries annually -- compared to $300 million a decade ago.

"This is a time to concentrate our minds," Annan said.

"It is a time to recognise that although our response so far has succeeded in some of the particulars, it has yet to match the epidemic in scale," he said.

UN General Assembly president Jan Eliasson said the "woefully slow" international response to the AIDS crisis would prove to be a scar on the conscience of an entire generation.

"This vast human tragedy is all the more unacceptable because it could have been avoided," Eliasson said in an address to be delivered later today at a special World AIDS Day event in New York.