Red Cross designatesHIV/Aids 'a disaster'

HIV IS a "long and complex disaster" and needs to be given a much higher priority in the context of humanitarian disasters, the International Red Cross said yesterday.

"We are now at the point of seismic shock in terms of what we are facing," Irish Red Cross chairman David Andrews said at the launch of the annual World Disasters Report. "Seven thousand people contracted HIV every day of last year," he said.

The organisation called on the humanitarian community to "rise to the challenge of HIV" and said HIV/Aids should not be set aside because there appeared to be more important priorities.

HIV meets the definition of a disaster because it can cause a "serious disruption of the functioning" of a society, the report said. Some 2.1 million people died from Aids in 2007, and such a scale makes it a disaster, the report argued.

HIV is also a disaster because it impacts on particular societies and communities such as sub-Saharan African countries, sex workers and intravenous drug users, the report said.

Despite the rapid rise of world-wide funding for HIV/Aids in the last decade, much governmental aid is earmarked, the organisation said. Such aid can be discriminatory, it said, giving the example of the United States, which restricts funding for groups helping sex workers.

Emergencies have a severe impact on people with HIV where there can be infection from dirty water and malnutrition, in addition to the problems caused by missing anti-retroviral treatment. Nine of the 15 major emergencies in 2007 were in countries with HIV epidemics.