CAIRO: The United Nations AIDS country office in Egypt is capitalizing on the January 25 Revolution spirit, as well as the fact that Egypt sits on the Program Coordinating Board of UNAIDS from 2011 to 2012. “There is definitely a great opportunity now in the country especially with the readiness to talk about human rights from civil society and we have seen that the youth is able to galvanize the movement and the spirit of the revolution is inclusive of all sectors,” head of UNAIDS Egypt, Wessam El-Beih, told Daily News Egypt. She explained that the revolution advocated social justice, which can't be achieved without including minorities such as women or people living with HIV/AIDS because social justice is inclusive of all. “And here we are talking about basic rights, about people having access to treatment, quality life and a life free from discrimination,” she pointed out. In terms of UNAIDS' work, El-Beih said that they will be working more with civil society organizations and the youth and get them to support issues of human rights. “Although we worked with youth and civil society before the revolution, the focus was more with government,” she noted. “It is challenging as well because there are many competing priorities to focus on such as political reform. It is very important to have an equal focus on the social and economic rights because that is what the revolution has been calling for from day one,” El-Beih said. Earlier this month, UNAIDS organized a Photography exhibition and discussion forum to highlight the power of the people and the role of art in promoting social justice and human rights. The ten-day photo exhibition was organized in collaboration with Sawy Cultural Wheel for 50 photographs displaying the positive faces from the Egyptian revolution and others highlighting positive faces rejecting HIV related stigma in Egypt. The event included a panel discussion with. Menna Shalabi, UNAIDS Egypt goodwill ambassador, Monir El-Shazly, professional photographer and member of Jury for photo contest and Mohamed Salah, president of the International Federation of Medical Students Association in Egypt. UNAIDS coordinating board Egypt sits on the Program Coordinating Board of UNAIDS from 2011 to 2012 together with Djibouti representing Africa. “For two years those two countries will be speaking on behalf of Africa and this is very important because when you have countries talking about Africa they are mostly talking about the high prevalence countries,” said El-Beih. “It's very important that [Egypt] talks about issues in North Africa and the Middle East that face other types of challenges [such as] cultural barriers to tackle a response as aggressively as you want, you have a lot of stigma and discrimination and many don't have enough political support to the issue,” she explained. “So it is very important that Egypt play this role of advocacy within the global community in order to bring to the light the views of low prevalence countries as well because we don't want to find ourselves only focusing on where the crisis is and not focusing on the countries where we want to prevent the crisis form happening,” she explained. Their first meeting will on June 21 in Geneva. Meeting in New York On a related note, world leaders will convene in New York at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS on June 8. The gathering of heads of state and other leaders from government, the scientific community, civil society and the private sector offers a unique opportunity to review progress, share lessons learned and chart the future course of the global AIDS response. The meeting comes at a pivotal moment in the history of the epidemic, 30 years since AIDS was identified. Ten years ago, at a landmark UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS, world leaders declared that AIDS was a “global emergency” and called for an “urgent, coordinated and sustained response” to the epidemic. According to a recent report of the UN Secretary-General, more than six million people were accessing lifesaving antiretroviral treatment in low- and middle-income countries at the end of 2010 — up from just 400 000 in 2003. Over the past decade, the number of people newly infected with HIV declined by nearly 20 percent. And, for the first time in 2009, more than 50 percent of HIV-positive women were able to ensure that their babies were born HIV free, according to a press statement by UNAIDS. UN Secretary General called for a General Assembly meeting, to discuss the progress in meeting the MDGs which is four years away. “We need to galvanize some of the movements and some of the response, especially on HIV, in order to come as close as possible to meeting the target for universal access and achieving the MDGs,” she said. “Globally there has been a lot of progress on reducing new infections of HIV, on putting more people on treatment, enhancing services for key populations, such as drug users, but not to the extent that reverses the spread of the epidemic and definitely the progress is not the same in every region,” explained El-Beih. For example in the Middle East and North Africa, the trend is still going up for new infections, unlike the global trend, she pointed out. “The treatment coverage [in the Middle East] is unacceptably low, only 14 percent of the people who need treatment are actually getting it,” said El-Beih. On the other hand, the events happening around the Middle East and North Africa may be fueling the spread of HIV while countries are not focusing on the response. “The focus [is currently on] on other issues that are considered more of a priority because we are still looking at the overall numbers rather than the trend and rather than the right of people who should have access to treatment and other services,” warned El-Beih. To accelerate progress in the AIDS response, the UN Secretary General has called on the global community to adopt six goals for the year 2015 — targets that will reviewed and endorsed by participants in the June High Level Meeting on AIDS. These include, reducing by 50 percent the sexual transmission of HIV and prevent all new HIV infections as a result of injecting drug use; providing HIV treatment for 13 million people, reducing by 50 percent tuberculosis deaths in people living with HIV, eliminating HIV transmission from mother to child, keeping mothers alive, and improving the health of women, children and families; ensuring equal access to education for children orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS and reduce by 50 percent the number of countries with HIV-related restrictions on entry, stay and residence.
