Public health and development: actions in the field of the AIDS in developing countries, 1997-1999 programme

The rapporteur approved the proposal but tabled amendments concerning the priority strategies to be adopted and the action to be taken. The rapporteur called on the Community to support strategies to: - promote an effective policy to prevent HIV/AIDS from being transmitted sexually, perinatally or through the blood and to prevent and treat sexually transmitted diseases, mainly by funding information and training campaigns, promoting the correct use of all means of protection, particularly condoms, and planning campaigns with the involvement of the media capable of reaching the population; - break the "poverty-instability-HIV/AIDS" cycle, giving particular attention to high-risk groups (refugees, migrants, itinerant workers, soldiers etc.); - reinforce health and social services (sexual education courses for young people that respect their cultural identity); - develop regional and international medical cooperation exchanges; - include action against AIDS in the general measures against other diseases in developing countries by improving primary health care; - promote dialogue with religious communities which reject public anti-AIDS campaigns; - promote a policy aimed at ensuring respect for the fundamental human rights referred to in the decisions of the Fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing; - develop scientific knowledge on the epidemic. The rapporteur called for action to: - provide sexual and reproductive health education; - improve the availability and use of different means and methods of protection through the promotion, distribution and social marketing of condoms; - promote methods for systematic HIV/AIDS screening among the populations in developing countries; - increase the availability of drugs to treat sexually transmitted diseases; - set up a solidarity instrument to improve the treatment for those affected by HIV in the poorest countries, in conjunction with the Member States and the NGOs; - establish, with the active support of the main UNO agencies and pharmaceutical laboratories, a financial connection between treatment financed in rich countries and treatment needed in developing countries; - strengthen health services and care establishments; - involve local communities in the devising of information strategies and sex education programmes. The rapporteur called for all AIDS prevention and control programmes to respect human rights and cultural and religious characteristics, insofar as these were compatible with the fight against this disease. She also called for action to combat discrimination, stigmas and the ghettoization of those living with the virus and for priority to be given in the means deployed to strengthening national capacities, especially in the form of training programmes designed to increase the involvement and autonomy of recipient countries. Financial support for developing countries takes the form of non-refundable grants. Decision on projects costing over ECU 2 million must be approved by a committee.�