Fund AIDS Fight Not Foreign Debts, Says UN Adviser

African governments should fund programs to combat HIV/AIDS before they service foreign debts, UN special adviser Jeffrey Sachs said on Saturday at an Earth Summit panel in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Sachs, director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and special adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said that Western and African governments are doing too little to fight the pandemic. "Defend your people," Sachs told participants. "It's untenable to be paying debt that could be used to fight the pandemic. It's imperative to channel those funds to AIDS, given this holocaust," he said.

Health has been identified as one of five key areas for the Earth Summit, alongside energy, water, agriculture and biodiversity. But as delegates debate strategies to raise the standard of living without further damaging the environment, activists are complaining that AIDS, the single biggest killer in Africa, is being ignored. "We've heard a lot about the vicious cycle of poverty, but it's much more than a vicious cycle. There's a silent holocaust under way in this region, and the world is not recognizing it," Sachs said. "Shame on the rich countries for daring to talk about sustainable development when millions of people are dying because they have not addressed the [AIDS] issue," Sachs said.

Sachs did not single out South Africa's government or President Thabo Mbeki, the summit's host, for refusing to sanction a broad drugs-based AIDS intervention in South Africa, where an estimated one in nine or 4.7 million people are infected with the virus. In neighboring Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland, more than one-third of the adult population is infected with HIV. In some countries, life expectancy has dropped to 40 years. In many areas of Africa, food production, health and education are all in jeopardy as the disease cuts down people in their prime working years.

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