Annan: World losing war on AIDS
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 For people in some of the countries we are talking about, AIDS is a real weapon of mass destruction 
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-- Kofi Annan
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LONDON, England (AP) -- The world is losing the battle against AIDS as governments fail to confront the threat posed by the disease, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.
Annan told the BBC he was saddened by the "incredible callousness" of a world that allowed millions of AIDS sufferers in developing countries to die from lack of affordable treatment.
"I feel angry, I feel distressed, I feel helpless and I also feel that, to live in a world where we have the means, we have the resources to be able to help all these patients, what is lacking is the political will," Annan said in an interview broadcast Saturday.
"It does feel like injustice, but it does indicate a certain incredible callousness, that one would not have expected in the 21st century," he added.
Annan said he had made progress on getting pharmaceutical companies to lower prices for antiretroviral drugs, -- the most effective treatment yet discovered for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But he said many governments remained unwilling to speak out against the stigma associated with the disease.
As head of the U.N., he said, "I'm really not winning the war" on AIDS.
"I'm not winning the war because I don't think the leaders of the world are engaged enough."
Despite advances in treatment and education, there were more deaths and infections from HIV/AIDS this year than ever before. The disease killed more than 3 million people in 2003, according to the U.N., and at least 34 million people around the world are living with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV -- more than 26 million of them in Africa.
Annan said that by 2005 the U.N. would need US$10 billion a year for its fight against AIDS; its Global Fund to Fight AIDS has so far been promised only US$3.6 billion.
He said the world needed to confront both "hard threats" such as terrorism and "soft threats" including poverty and AIDS that "are wreaking much more havoc than terrorists are.
"For people in some of the countries we are talking about, AIDS is a real weapon of mass destruction," he said. "And what are we doing about that?"
Annan said it was inexplicable that "in certain parts of the world AIDS is a disease that can be treated and one can live with and function," while in others it is a death sentence.
"Where is our common humanity?"
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
