The United Nations
General Assembly on Friday adopted a political declaration at the end of its
three-day high-level meeting on AIDS, setting ambitious new targets to end
AIDS and charting a new path in the global response for the next five years.

Photo taken on June 10, 2011 shows the venue of the high-level meeting on AIDS at the UN headquarters in New York, the United States. The United Nations General Assembly on Friday adopted a political declaration at the end of its three-day high-level meeting on AIDS, setting ambitious new targets to end AIDS and charting a new path in the global response for the next five years. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

The unanimously adopted declaration set a target of
treating 15 million people with life-saving drugs and putting an end to HIV
transmission from mother to child by 2015.

The new declaration expressed the “urgent need to scale up
significantly our efforts towards the goal of universal access to
comprehensive prevention, programs, treatment, care and support.”

The declaration was adopted by the UN General Assembly High
Level Meeting on AIDS, which was held 30 years after the outbreak of the AIDS
epidemic and 10 years after the historic 2001 UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS,
and five years after the 2006 signing of the Political Declaration where UN
member states committed to moving towards universal access to HIV prevention,
treatment, care and support, the world body meets at this critical point.

Other targets include halving sexual transmission of HIV by
2015; reducing transmission of HIV among people who inject drugs by 50 percent
by 2015; to increase universal access to antiretroviral therapy; and to reduce
tuberculosis deaths in people living with HIV by 50 percent by 2015.

The declaration committed to “seize this turning point in
the HIV epidemic and through decisive, inclusive and accountable leadership to
revitalize and intensify the comprehensive global HIV and AIDS response.”

Over the course of the three-day high level meeting on
AIDS, more than 30 heads of state, government and vice presidents together
with senior officials, representatives of international organizations, civil
society and HIV infected people, stressed the need for an “exceptional and
comprehensive global response.”

At the start of the meeting, which opened here Wednesday,
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed it as “historic,” saying ” this is our
goal: an end to AIDS within the decade — zero new infections, zero stigma and
zero AIDS-related deaths.”

“We can end the fear,” Ban said. “We can stop the suffering
and death it brings. We can get to an AIDS-free world.”

The General Assembly recognized that HIV and AIDS is a
“global emergency,” singling out Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa,
which “remains the worst affected region and that urgent and exceptional
action is required at all levels to curb the devastating effects of this
epidemic.”

The declaration also pledged to close the global resource
gap for AIDS and work towards increasing funding to between 22 billion U.S.
dollars and 24 billion U.S. dollars per year by 2015.

The high-level meeting also included a series of panel
sessions and events.

On Tuesday, the Security Council adopted a new resolution
reaffirming its commitment to fighting the epidemic, while also seeking to
protect peacekeepers and the communities that they interact with, as well as
help end violence against women in conflict.

“The momentum we’ve experienced here again confirms the
essential role of the UN in the AIDS response,” Paul De Lay, the deputy
executive director of the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS ( UNAIDS), told
reporters ahead of the concluding session. “This meeting intends to bring us
to the beginning of the end of AIDS.”

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet