By IPS Correspondents
MAPUTO, Jul 11 2003 (IPS)

Almost as common as national flags at the African Union summit in Maputo, Mozambique, is the red ribbon symbol of the anti-HIV/AIDS campaign.

Messages warning about the threat HIV/AIDS poses to the future development of the continent are all over convention centre where 53 African heads of state are meeting this week.

One of them warns: ”Vertical transmission threatens the leadership of the continent.” But African leaders were taking the danger HIV/AIDS poses to the future of the continent very seriously, before this warning.

Part of the official programme of the summit was the first-ever international, open public forum with African heads of state on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis – the Global Forum on Health and Development – using the latest communications technologies.

”It is an attempt to bring together African heads of state and their international partners to seal a joint commitment in scaling up action against diseases that are major health, economic and social problems throughout Africa,” said the organisers in a statement.

The meeting took place worldwide Thursday, from sites in Africa, Europe and the United States.

The session, the brainchild of Pascoal Mocumbi, Prime Minister of Mozambique, was organised by the Interactive Health Network (IHN) and Exchange, both British-based bodies active in health communication.

Speakers included the President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano; children’s rights activist, Graca Machel; the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan; and the UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot.

The Mozambican minister for foreign affairs, Leonardo Santo Simao, said the session was not about securing additional funds or to come up with another programme to fight HIV/AIDS, but to allow the participants to share their ideas and experiences of tackling the disease.

In his address to African leaders, Annan said: ”Just as Africa seeks to focus on the future, some of it can barely hang onto the present. Africa’s efforts are being systematically undermined by a virus so cruel that it strikes young adults as they are poised to enter their most productive years and assume the mantle of leadership.”

He called on them to take the lead in the fight against the disease. ”It requires all of you to show the way by example, by breaking the wall of silence that continues to surround the pandemic and making the fight against AIDS a priority second to none. I have made it mine and I know several among you have made it yours,” Annan said.

”Sixty million Africans have been touched by AIDS in the most immediate way,” said UNAIDS executive director, Piot. He said, ”They are either living with HIV, have died of AIDS or they have lost their parents to AIDS.”

Fifty-eight percent of those infected with the disease in sub-Saharan Africa are women, he added.

Piot warned that fewer that one in five people at risk of infection are targeted by an HIV/AIDS prevention programme.

He pointed out that although the price at which anti-retrovirals – drugs which ease the impact of the disease on people living with HIV/AIDS and help reduce the rate of infection with the virus – are available to developing countries, access to technical facilities and sustainable financing are still major barriers to their effective use.

Annan called on African governments and donors to double their budgets to fight the disease, every year, for the ”foreseeable future”.

During his five-nation tour of Africa, which ended this week, U.S. President George W. Bush had been promoting his 15-billion-U.S.-dollar package – over the next five years – to fight HIV/AIDS globally.

Excerpt: