African leaders declared a state of emergency over AIDS today and vowed to make the fight against the disease their highest priority.
Concluding the African AIDS summit in Abuja, 15 heads of state and senior government officials from 43 African nations agreed to create legislation and international trade regulations to ensure AIDS drugs were made available at affordable prices.
The Abuja Declaration, a document signed by the assembled nations, also urged developed countries to support their fight against AIDS by donating 0.7 percent of their gross national product to developing countries.
But the leaders diluted a radical proposal for each country to put 15 percent of their national budget towards battling HIV/AIDS and related diseases. The governments instead agreed to set a target of spending 15 percent of their respective budgets towards the overall improvement of the health sector.
"For some time we seem to be unsure and uncertain what to do about HIV/AIDS," the summit's chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, told the leaders as they signed the declaration.
"I believe we have come to an end of that uncertainty with the end of this summit. We are clear in our minds where to go and how to go," he added.
The leaders supported UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call at the opening of the conference for a 5-10 billion global AIDS fund. The 1 billion being spent to fight the disease in Africa was not enough, he said.