Bellamy opens photo exhibition

December 2, 2003
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Visiting UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy Sunday opened a photo exhibition entitled “A World with AIDS” soon after arriving for a three-day visit ahead of a South Asian conference on HIV/AIDS with the theme “Fight Against HIV/AIDS in South Asia”.

The conference is being hosted by the Nepalese government and sponsored by UNICEF. UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot opened a showing of South Asian documentaries on HIV/AIDS issues. Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand inaugurates the conference Monday.

The conference brings together senior ministers, policy makers and parliamentarians from seven SAARC countries and Afghanistan to review the commitments made at the UN General Special Session on HIV/AIDS and the 11th SAARC summit in Kathmandu last year.

The conference will issue a declaration entitled :”The Kathmandu Call for Accelerated Action for HIV/AIDS” for immediate implementation of an accelerated, broader action agenda for HIV/AIDS prevention and care in the region to meet the goals and targets set at the UN Special Session.

The conference will also discuss modalities for monitoring progress in meeting goals and targets set at the Special Session in June 2001 and those related to HIV/AIDS prevention and care.

UNICEF says in South Asia there is a need for “greater will, commitment and larger allocations of resources towards a wider response from all sectors of the government and civil society”.

In 2001, the AIDS epidemic claimed 3 million lives; an estimated five million people, 800,000 of them children, became infected in 2001; they joined the 35 million people already living with HIV/AIDS, UNICEF says.