The spread of the deadly HIV virus is a threat to world peace like terrorism, the chief the United Nations AIDS agency said Monday.
Calling AIDS “an earthquake in slow motion,” the UNAIDS head also slammed the European Union for failing to cope with the fast-growing epidemic in Eastern Europe as the EU expands.
“Millions of orphans, children with no future -- it’s enough that there is a warlord who puts a Kalashnikov in their hands,” UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot told Reuters on the sidelines of a speech in Oslo.
“It’s as big of a threat as terrorism,” he said, referring to massive poverty as a result of AIDS, sparking political unrest which could even lead to cross-border conflicts, as well as a weakening of defense forces in heavily infected countries.
More than half of the military forces in some poor African states are infected with HIV, children have been orphaned, many schools have no teachers and companies no staff because of HIV and AIDS, he said.
AIDS is the number one killer in Africa, the home of at least 70 percent of the world’s 40 million HIV-infected people, but the fastest growing epidemic is in Eastern Europe.
The former Soviet bloc has seen a 50-fold increase in HIV infections in the past eight years, to around 1.5 million --the most dramatic rise in the world.
“The EU has failed in dealing with AIDS at its borders, at its doorsteps, including in some of the new enlargement countries,” Piot said.
When Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, along with Malta and Cyprus, formally join the EU from May 1, they will raise its population to 450 million from 380 million.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Red Cross in non-EU Norway, Piot also called on the EU to designate one commission to manage the fight against AIDS, saying there was so far no clear definition of responsibility within the Union.
“Some of the enlargement countries have done very well, like Poland, but the Baltic states have big problems,” Piot said.