Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-12-Speech-3-333"
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"en.20071212.30.3-333"2
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".
Mr President, yes, AIDS has claimed too many victims – far too many. It continues to claim them and will claim many more. Tragically, many children will be infected before birth. We have heard the figures, they are frightening, and I do not intend to go through them again.
Sadly, the spread of AIDS is continuing not only in the EU Member States but in non-member countries too, and to fight this new wave of the epidemic it is essential that we step up preventive action, provide more treatment, care and support and forge the partnerships that are absolutely vital to the effort. Alongside prevention we need to improve access to information, and make it easier for people to obtain advice, treatment and social services. We need to mitigate the negative impact of this disease – one of saddest aspects being that it is a taboo condition, something people dare not discuss freely. To achieve all this, we need to mobilise available resources and focus research, coordinate our efforts and fund specific projects. Only if everyone concerned works together in constructive partnership can we make a significant and lasting contribution to stemming this epidemic.
One striking thing is the fact that today’s young Europeans have never experienced the type of effective prevention campaigns that were run in the 1980s. European societies need to shoulder their responsibility here and get the essential information about HIV and AIDS across to young people. The most recent surveys show an astonishing level of ignorance about the disease among the young. 54% of young people in the ‘old’ EU Member States believe HIV can be contracted by drinking from the same glass as an infected person. That shows how vital it is to improve awareness and to invest in prevention and in information about the use of condoms. The cost of condoms is another issue that needs to be addressed. The survey findings also show that we cannot relax our efforts; we cannot overlook what is no longer a ‘new’ disease. In raising awareness, we need to deliver the right messages – messages better tailored to their audience. Efforts are currently under way on this front. The messages we put across need to be more up-to-date and they need to make a real impression on young people. Until recently and largely for ethical reasons, it was left, in the main, to patients to seek advice and to request HIV testing. In retrospect we can now identify two problems with that approach: firstly, the availability of services was poor and, secondly, people were afraid of being stigmatised and discriminated against. In low-income countries the fact that testing is voluntary is a serious obstacle to combating the AIDS pandemic. How can disadvantaged, poorly educated patients be expected to give informed consent? How can a person who has never heard of HIV consent to being tested for it?
And what benefit does an individual derive from taking an HIV test in a country that has no social protection system? Recent surveys in sub-Saharan Africa show that only 12% of men and 10% of women have had the test and received results. This disease is an ongoing threat and we must not lower our guard against it!"@en1
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