By IPS Correspondents
BANGKOK, Jul 11 2004 (IPS)

The overarching theme for the 15th International AIDS Conference – ”Access for All” – came under fire just before the opening ceremony in Thailand’s capital today as activists rallied for the poor in developing countries who are denied the availability of treatments for HIV.

”We would like the conference to focus on treatment for people with HIV/AIDS from poor countries, rather than on business issues,” Kamol Upakeaw, Chairman of Thai Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS, told IPS.

”The purpose of our action is to make it clear that the world will no longer accept the broken promises or political barriers that deny access to vital prevention programs or treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS,” added Kamol.

The Thai AIDS campaigner lead over 1,000 local and international activists to conference’s main venue, at the Impact Arena, an hour before the official opening to highlight how access to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) has actually divided the rich and poor. ARVs are substances that are used to kill or inhibit the multiplication of retroviruses such as HIV.

The activists, some of them HIV-positive, were carrying banners that read: “Stop the War on HIV,” ”Condoms for All,” ”You Talk But We Die of AIDS” and ”Treatment Access Now,”

In his opening speech to the conference, Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra urged governments around the world to do their best to provide ARVs to those who need them.

The Thai premier said that among the dead could include ”our friends, our neighbours, or even someone we loved.” ”But with ARVs, we can immediately put a stop to this dismal problem,” he said.

Thaksin said his government was committed to initially making ARVs accessible to at least 50,000 Thais living with HIV/AIDS and added “we hope to do even better in the future.”

Over 10,000 delegates attended the opening ceremony of the world’s largest AIDS conference, which ends on Jul. 16.

The six-day conference has drawn over 17,000 policy makers, scientists, health officials and activists.

With one in four new HIV cases being reported from Asia, the sprawling continent is on the verge of being felled by an AIDS epidemic that would dwarf the devastation wrought by the killer disease in Africa, experts warned.

By the end of 2003, Asia had an estimated 7.4 million people living with HIV out of the 38 million adults and children infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) world-wide, the ‘2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic’ revealed.

During that year, close to half a million people are estimated to have died by the virus that causes AIDS, while 1.1 million people became newly infected, the 231-page Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) report added.

In opening the conference, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan made a plea for women to be spared from the brunt of the epidemic.

”Women now account for nearly half of all adult infections,” said Annan.

”In Sub-Saharan Africa, that figure is around 58 percent. Among people younger than 24, girls and young women make up nearly two-thirds of those living with HIV,” he pointed out.

The U.N. secretary-general said one third of all countries in the world still do not have policies to ensure that women have access to prevention and care.

”Knowing what we do today about the path of the epidemic, how can we allow that to be the case?” asked Annan.

Annan called for positive change that will give more power and confidence to women and girls to address social inequalities that put them at risk to HIV/AIDS.

He called for governments to give priority for the education of girls.

”Only when societies recognise that educating girls is not an option, but a necessity, will girls and young women be able to build the knowledge, the self-confidence and the independence they need to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS,” said Annan.

Dr Joep Lange, president of the Stockholm-based International AIDS Society, and co-chair of the conference, urged the delegates to be open to criticism.

”Let everyone be heard at this conference,” he said. ”We need the acrimonious debates, we need the protests, the political incorrectness, we need the unpleasant facts to triumph over opinion.”

Irene Fernadez, a Malaysian lawyer and migrant labour activist hit out at the Thai government for barring migrant workers from Cambodia, Laos and Burma at the biennial gathering.

”If they cross provinces and travel to Bangkok, they have been threatened with arrest,” Fernadez complained at a satellite session on empowering migrant workers and reducing their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

”It not only happens in Thailand, but also in many other receiving countries of migrant workers,” Fernadez pointed out.

The Malaysian activist called for joint actions among countries in the region to challenge governments that deny migrant worker’s rights.

”Such discrimination has denied them access to program, information, care and treatment (for AIDS-related ailments),” she said.

According to the Malaysian activist, battling the interference of governments is one of the challenges in empowering migrant workers.

Rapid economic development in some Asian countries has lured many people, mostly young, to leave their homeland in search of greener pastures.

While some move from rural areas to cities, others cross their national borders.

In China there are some 120 million migrants floating across the country whereas Malaysia has become the biggest receiving country for migrants in Asia, with a total of three million foreign workers.

“There is strong link between various kinds of mobility and heightened risk of HIV,” says the latest report on global AIDS issued by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

However, while there is a widespread prejudice that migrants ”bring AIDS with them, the fact is that many migrants move from low HIV prevalence areas to those with higher prevalence, increasing their own risk of being exposed to the virus,” the UNAIDS report adds.

According to Fernadez, migrant workers are often not in the national agenda for HIV prevention.

”There isn’t enough focus given to them. In current programs designed for migrants, individual intervention is highlighted whereas policy and structural elements are ignored,” she told those gathered at the satellite meeting.

”Every time UNAIDS issues a global report, we can see an increase in infection (for this population),” said Fernadez.

(* Ounkeo Souksavanh and Ma Guihua contributed to this report.)

Excerpt: