UN demands action for those at risk from Aids

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan challenged world leaders last night to protect the most marginal groups in society from HIV/Aids.

Mr Annan and General Assembly President Jan Eliasson opened a three-day conference on Aids that includes thousands of activists, ministers and diplomats to assess progress so far.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Overseas Development Conor Lenihan are representing Ireland at the meting in New York.

To combat Aids, "It means we must work closely and constructively with those who have too often been marginalised - sex workers, injecting drug users and men who have sex with men," Mr Annan said.

"We need to be realistic. If we are here to try and end the epidemic and fight the epidemic, we will not succeed by putting our heads in the sand and pretending these people do not exist or do not need help."

According to a major UN Aids report released earlier this week, the spread of the pandemic had slowed, but drug treatment is only available to less than half of those infected with HIV, the virus that causes Aids

Still, many delegations - particularly Islamic ones - and some conservative Latin American nations refuse to mention prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals in a final statement now under negotiation. They prefer citing "vulnerable" groups, fearing that specific mention would endorse these groups.

Also in dispute are rights for girls and sex education, among other issues.

The United States took the same position at the last major UN Aids conference in 2001, but US officials said this no longer was the case.

But an early marked-up draft showed US objections to a European proposal on services for homosexuals, sex workers and drug users. The United States rejected a reference to "harm reduction," a euphemism for needle exchanges, which Washington opposes.

Mr Annan also stressed the increase of women contracting the disease, especially in sub-Sahara Africa. Of the more than 38 million people infected worldwide, 17 million are women, three-quarters of them in Africa, said the UN report.

Particularly disadvantaged are women who have been raped, including child brides by their husbands, and women who are never diagnosed and treated.