Date: Sat, 1 Apr 1995 19:15:38 +0200 (MSZ) From: Bj|rn Skolander Subject: World AIDS Day 1995 WORLD AIDS DAY 1995: "SHARED RIGHTS, SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES" World AIDS Day - 1 December - will be marked in 1995 under the banner Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities, the World Health Organization has announced. In choosing the theme, after consultation with other United Nations agencies and with leading nongovernmental organizations, WHO aims to highlight the importance of equality and solidarity in the global response to HIV/AIDS. "The HIV/AIDS pandemic can be addressed effectively only if rights and responsibilities are shared equally across the globe", says Dr Hiroshi Nakajima, Director-General of WHO. "People share the same rights whether or not not they are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). And responsibilities involved in HIV prevention and caring for those infected must be shared too." Everyone - men, women, children, the poor, minorities, migrants, refugees, sex workers, drug injectors, gay men - has the right to be able to avoid infection, the right to health care, if sick with AIDS, and the right to be treated with dignity and without discrimination. Regardless of HIV status, shared rights also include the right to liberty, freedom of movement, to employment, to marry and found a family, and to seek asylum. As for responsibilities, individuals have a responsibility to protect themselves and others from infection. Men in particular, because of their dominant status in many societies, have the responsibility to practise safe sex. Families and communities have a responsibility to educate their members on AIDS prevention, and to care for those affected by HIV. Governments, fulfilling their duty to protect public health, have a responsibility to implement appropriate HIV prevention polices and to ensure that all their citizens have equal access to available care services. For its part, the international community has a responsibility to ensure effective global cooperation on HIV/AIDS, and to support poorer countries in meeting the challenge. For World AIDS Day 1995, WHO invites individuals, families, governments and the international community to expand this list, to begin a dialogue on rights and responsibilities, and - most importantly - to ensure that all rights are respected and responsibilities fulfilled. In 1995, the United Nations International Year for Tolerance, the theme of Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities is particularly appropriate for events and activities leading up to World AIDS Day and beyond. Eyerone shares the right to tolerance from others and the responsibility to be tolerant of others, regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnic background, social standing or health status, including HIV infection", says Dr Peter Piot, Director of the joint and cosponsored United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS, which will bring together the AIDS work to WHO and five other UN agencies (1) by the end of 1995. World AIDS Day was observed for the first time on 1 December 1988 after a summit of world health ministers called for a spirit of social tolerance and a greater exchange of information on HIV/AIDS. Previous World AIDS Days have had the following slogans: Join the Worldwide Effort (1988), Our Lives, Our World - Let's Take Care of Each Other (1989), Women and AIDS (1990), Sharing the Challenge (1991), A Community Commitment (1992) and Time to Act (1993). On 1 December 1994, as 42 nations met in France for the Paris AIDS Summit, hundreds of thousands of people arround the globe marked World AIDS Day under the banner of AIDS and the Family and its related slogan Families Take Care. The 1995 theme builds on part of the Paris Declaration, which proclaimed the determination of signatories to fight discrimination and promote the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and of those most vulnerable of infection. "People living with HIV/AIDS should have equal access to education, employment, health care and social benefits, says Dr Piot. "Vulnerable groups should suffer no discrimination in the context of HIV/AIDS." There is no conflict between individual rights and public health in the context of HIV/AIDS. In fact, the protection of human rights promotes public health, because discriminatory and coercive measures discourage people from coming forward for information and treatment. * * * Nearly 20 million people including 1.5 million children, had been infected with HIV by the end of 1994 since the start of the pandemic, according to estimates published in January 1995 by WHO's Global Programme on AIDS (GPA). The total number of people estimated to have developed AIDS since the start of the pandemic rose to around 4.5 million at the end of 1994. * * * Last year's World AIDS Day events included marches and demonstrations, concerts and exhibitions, educational programmes and condom promotions, commemorations, artistic happenings and countless other events. For many groups and organizations, World AIDS "Day" extented over a week or even longer, crowing months of activity of the theme. WHO hopes that World AIDS Day 1995 will spur the global response to HIV/AIDS by awakening people to their shared rights and responsibilities - and urging them to action. (1) The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Developement Fund (UNDP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank.