PM urges action on HIV/Aids

By HELEN TUNNAH in Apia



Helen Clark has pressed Pacific Island leaders into tackling an Aids crisis confronting the region, saying hopes for economic development will be futile if the disease reaches African proportions in the region.

She has told Pacific Island leaders at their forum in Samoa that unchecked, the spread of the disease could become debilitating for some economies.

Papua New Guinea has the highest rate of infection in the region, at around 130 cases per 100,000 people.

New Zealand's infection rate is 23 per 100,000.

Officials have warned leaders that without action, the Pacific faces a 10-year descent into African-levels of infection, with the subsequent impact on the educated classes and workforce.

Traditional and religious norms across the Pacific have in some countries prevented open debate about stopping the spread of HIV/Aids, but Helen Clark was firm in the need for leaders to face the challenge.

"The main emphasis has to go on sex education, condom use and partner education.

"How that is approached will differ from country to country because we are often up against quite deep and sensitive cultural taboos.

"We now need the forum to go a step further ... to give the countries a very clear idea of what steps they need to take to get a good prevention programme in place."

That strategy will be developed over the next six months, and a regional prevention programme will be discussed at next year's forum.

Because that is in Papua New Guinea, Aids is bound to become a dominant topic for talks.

In their final communique released yesterday, Pacific leaders endorsed both the HIV/Aids strategy and the setting up of a new taskforce to develop details around how there can be greater cooperation in the region.

A year ago, leaders agreed to set up a working party to study the forum, and at a special mini-summit in Auckland in April, they produced the Pacific Plan.

That proposed a look at the pooling of resources, at both organisational, and potentially political, levels. It stopped short of promoting any formal political unions, but has in the past canvassed the pooling of policing, customs and transport resources.

The taskforce members have not been announced, but Helen Clark said New Zealand would have a role in setting it up.