Candidate for top UNAIDS job says close it down!
The United Nations programme for AIDS, UNAIDS, is obsolete and an obstacle to improving healthcare in developing countries claims Roger England, an international health expert at the Health Systems Workshop, and candidate for the post of Executive Director of UNAIDS.
Mr England was presenting at the UN Headquarters in New York this week at a symposium organised by the United Nations University and Cornell University on HIV in Africa.
He argues that UNAIDS advocacy for one disease has resulted in too much spending on HIV at the expense of diseases that have worse effects on the poor. The United States and other donors are pushing HIV money on countries that do not want it, but who do need help with funding public health and primary care systems to deal with all diseases.
Excluding South Africa, HIV ranks behind malaria, respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular disease as causes of death in Africa, and is comparable to maternal and newborn deaths, and accidents and injuries (see figure).
Globally, for every death from HIV, five children die before the age of five from diseases that are cheap to prevent or cure.
The UN’s classification of HIV as “exceptional”, different from all other diseases, has resulted in two-tier quality of services in many countries; with excellent and free treatment for HIV patients, and third rate care for everyone else, who usually have to pay.
Mr England stated: “Time is up for UNAIDS. Why do we have a UN agency for HIV and not for pneumonia or diabetes, each of which kills more people? The technical functions of UNAIDS should be re-integrated into the World Health Organisation, and the process of dismantling UNAIDS used to improve coordination between UN agencies and funders. We must reconstruct aid mechanisms which are currently a disgraceful shambles and an insult to both donor country tax payers and the poor of countries in need”.
Notes for editors
UNAIDS is advertising for a new Executive Director, following the resignation of Peter Piot. Interviews will take place in Geneva on 17th and 18th September.
He first called for UNAIDS to be shut down in a May 2008 article in the British Medical Journal: “The writing is on the wall for UNAIDS”.
The Health Systems Workshop is an independent policy think tank investigating and promoting the use of health systems sciences and management in poorer and middle-income countries. www.healthsystemsworkshop.org
Contacts
For more information contact Julian Harris on +44 2078360752 or at jharris =at= policynetwork.net
|
