Nairobi, 1 December 2003 -- Millions of people in Africa and elsewhere around the globe on Monday commemorated World AIDS Day as WHO and UNAIDS unveiled a "3 by 5" strategy aimed at providing antiretroviral treatment (ART) to three million people living with AIDS (PLWA) worldwide by 2005. 
"The strategy is focused on countries with the most serious epidemics of HIV/AIDS, but the support of our 3 by 5 teams will be offered to all Member States," WHO Assistant Director General for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, Dr Jack Chow, said at the global launch of the strategy in Nairobi, Kenya.

Dr Chow also announced at the launch that WHO approved had a single pill three-drug combination that would make treatment simpler. In addition, he said, WHO was now recommending just four HIV/AIDS treatment regimens -- which could be used even in resource poor settings -- instead of the previously recommended 35.

In the past two decades, he observed, AIDS had become the "premier weapon of mass destruction" turning many developing countries into "AIDS-imploding nations."

Dr Chow urged countries to ensure that no-one in need was excluded from treatment because of the cost of medicines, currently estimated at US$300 per person per year, and expected to fall to less than half that price by the end of 2005.

WHO estimates that in 2003 alone, some 3.2 million new HIV infections were recorded in the African Region, which also lost 2.3 million people to AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa, home to 10% of the world's population has about 26.6 million of the global population infected with the HIV virus, thus carrying 70% of the global burden of HIV/AIDS.

He explained that as part of the 3 by 5 strategy, WHO and its partners had set up the AIDS Medicines and Diagnostics Service, a new mechanism created to ensure easier access to the supply of safe, effective, quality and affordable medicines.

Dr Chow said evidence from other parts of the world showed that increasing ART could lead to more people knowing their HIV status, more openness and less stigma about AIDS, prolonged and better quality life of infected parents to look after children who may otherwise be orphaned, and ultimately risk being infected themselves.

Speaking at the launch, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Ebrahim Samba, described the 3 by 5 strategy as the most ambitious public health initiative by the global community to save life in Africa in the past 40 years.

"This launch is a response to an extraordinary catastrophe. It heralds the gigantic scaling up of a process we have already started in order to ensure that antiretroviral treatment is available and increasingly affordable to millions of Africans."

Some 4.1 million of the 26.6 million Africans living with the HIV virus have immediate and urgent need for ART but only slightly more than 50,000 of them have access to it, he said.

Dr Samba added that improved access to ART would prolong the life of millions of infected Africans, return them to economic productivity, and avert social and economic collapse in some severely hit African countries.

"Before now, some countries in our Region risked being wiped off the face of the earth; now thanks to "3 by 5", we may look to the future with hope", Dr Samba said.

The strategy to roll our anti-retroviral medicines to three million people by 2005 is expected to cost about one billion US Dollars. The plan also envisages the establishment of 10,000 centres provide AIDS treatment services, the training of 100,000 health providers and community workers to deliver the medicines and the establishment of 20,000 testing and counseling centres.

Samuel T. Ajibola
Public Information and Communication Unit 
World Health Organization - Regional Office for Africa 
P.O. Box 6, Brazzaville, Congo
Tel: 47 241 39378; Fax : + 47 241 39513
Tel: In Nairobi: + 254 720 707 663