World AIDS Day is commemorated around the world on 1 December under a United Nations initiative.
A recent report by UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation has found that the female population is increasingly affected by the HIV epidemic around the globe, therefore "Women, girls and HIV and AIDS" is the focus of this year's World AIDS Day.
The report has also revealed that the number of people living with HIV has reached a record high with 39.4 million infected people worldwide. Within the EU, the situation is particularly grave in the Baltic states while the annual report has found a sharp increase in the number of infected individuals in the EU's neighbouring Russia and Ukraine (see also EurActiv, 24 November 2004).
The EU's commissioner for health, Markos Kyprianou, has said that young Europeans should be a target for awareness campaigns regarding the dangers of unsafe sex. “Teenagers and people in their early twenties, are too young to remember the safe sex campaigns of the 1980s and early 1990s. With HIV infection rates rising across our continent, urgent action is needed to avert a public health disaster.”
The commissioner for development and humanitarian aid says that the EU is pulling its weight in the global fight against the epidemic. "The Commission is the second largest donor to the Global Fund to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the developing world and has, since October 2004, a “policy framework" which I am committed to translating into concrete initiatives in those countries through an Action Plan to be presented early next year," Louis Michel said in a press release.
