Global Aids Day: epidemic driven by poverty and sexual exploitation
Workers Power Global, London: 1 December 2002

Every December we are reminded of the disaster that HIV disease has inflicted on the world. International Aids Day on 1 December provides a brief opportunity for discussion of what is going on and why, then the issue gets forgotten for another year by most politicians.

Forty-two million people have HIV. Last year three million people died, most in sub-Saharan Africa, with appalling economic consequences for society as well as the personal tragedy for the people involved. Seven million agricultural workers have died of Aids in 25 African countries, contributing to the massive famine that is now threatening the lives of a further 14 million people.

Despite the advances that have been made in prevention and treatment, the genocide that HIV has wreaked on Africa is now set to be repeated in Asia. There are already six million people infected with HIV in East and South East Asia, but this is set to rise rapidly. In India alone there are likely to be 20 million people infected by 2010, with a further 15 million in China. Why?

Because the epidemic is driven by poverty, sexual inequality and exploitation, all of which are increasing. Peter Piot, head of UNAids, politely explains, "the sober reality is that in most countries the response to Aids is not commensurate with the scale of the problem." We could say the same about international institutions like his.

While he is calling for £6.7billion by 2005 to launch effective prevention and treatment programmes, his sponsors, the World Bank and the US government among them, are intensifying the underlying problems. Trade liberalisation is forcing millions of workers around the world off the land and out of state industries to look to make their way in the market.

In the ruthless marketplace hundreds of thousands find sex work to be their best or only option, and with the work comes the risk of HIV. Innovative prevention campaigns including the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of sex workers in Asia are both inspiring and effective in reducing HIV risks. Cheap drugs are increasingly available to help treat people with HIV, although there are too few and there is no health infrastructure to administer and monitor their use.

The disaster of HIV will not be solved by investment in drugs and condoms, important as these are. The virus, just like the bacteria that causes TB, thrives on inequality and exploitation. Anti-capitalism is the drug of choice for this epidemic.

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