The AIDS pandemic, which now claims some 42 million victims, is one of the greatest threats to world stability, Mr Peter Piot, the head of the United Nations agency devoted to the ailment said today.
"There's definitely a case for increasing awareness in the developed countries that the AIDS epidemic, even far away in Africa or in India is affecting stability in the world," Mr Piot told a London news conference to launch a report on the disease by the UN and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
"There is a responsibility of governments and therefore of the public in countries of Western Europe to contribute to the fight against AIDS in developing countries," he said.
Mr Piot, who heads the UNAIDS agency, said the epidemic must be tackled not only because of the moral responsibility "but also because this is becoming one of the greatest threats to stability in the world".
Five million people will have become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) this year alone at a rate of 14,000 a day, according to the latest research.
The report was published in Geneva and presented in London by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and WHO ahead of World AIDS Day next Sunday.
The pandemic will amplify the impact of a famine threatening southern Africa and is poised to scythe through the complacent republics of the former Soviet Union and Asia's big-population countries, it said.
This year, the disease caused by HIV, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, will claim 3.1 million lives, the highest annual total in the 20-year history of the disease.
AFP