Article: Talking, Sharing Ideas an Important Part of AIDS Battle, Delegate Says

28 June 2001

Article: Talking, Sharing Ideas an Important Part of AIDS Battle, Delegate Says

U.S. delegate living with HIV discusses UN Special Session

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- For people living with HIV and AIDS, the just ended U.N. Special Session on HIV/AIDS has helped in their battle against the disease and met one of their main goals -- to talk with political leaders about what is needed, according to a member of the U.S. delegation.

Jario Pedrazza, who is a member of People with AIDS Leadership Institute and the Latino Commission on AIDS, says that over the past year as plans were being made for the three-day session the hope was that the gathering would not be just a conference. "We wanted it to be a U.N. process, a governmental process."

What was important to most individuals and members of private, non-governmental groups attending the session was the opportunity to talk with their countries' decisionmakers and political leaders to discuss the best ways to confront the disease that has devastated lives, families, communities, and entire nations.

And according to Pedrazza, who was a member of the official U.S. delegation headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, "we have achieved our goal."

"My personal expectation was for us people living with HIV and AIDS, civil society, to be able to talk to the prime minister, to be able to talk to the minister of heath," he said in an interview with the Washington File June 27. Without the Special Session on HIV/AIDS "that would not have happened."

At the session "if you walk down on the floor ... you see that sharing -- civil society and prime ministers together addressing a problem of HIV and AIDS," Pedrazza said,

The General Assembly's Special Session on HIV/AIDS was held from June 25 to 27 at U.N. headquarters. Delegates from the U.N.'s 189 member states attended along with representatives of over 2,000 NGOs from around the world. The special session concluded with the adoption of a "Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS" which sets out specific targets to be achieved in the next ten years and what is needed to meet those goals. Adopted by governments who "solemnly declared" their commitment to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, it is a political agenda that was drawn up not only by governments but by health care professionals, educators, private foundations and members of civil society, from people living with HIV and AIDS to youth orphaned by the disease.

Fiercely negotiated, the declaration, also entitled "Global Crisis -- Global Action," attempts to take into account human rights and economic as well as medical issues. It deals with the exploitation of poor women, discrimination against homosexuals, and problems with sex education. Divided into the basic areas of leadership; prevention; care, support, and treatment; human rights; reducing vulnerability of women; alleviating social and economic impact; research and development; HIV/AIDS in conflict- and disaster-affected regions; resources; and follow-up, it sets an overall target of annual expenditures on the epidemic of between $7,000 million and $10,000 million in low and middle income countries by 2005.

Pedrazza hopes the document will do many things, from getting some governments in the Americas, such as Ecuador and Peru, doing more, to bringing some countries around the world "out of denial, out of the closet into action."

"Here we can see that many countries have included civil society" on their delegations, he said. "That in itself is a step forward. It has never happened before at a U.N. meeting to have NGOs, people with HIV, within their delegations."

As one who works with community groups and schools and helps train health care professionals, Pedrazza puts a great deal of emphasis on the responsibility of communities to make the Declaration of Commitment meaningful and workable.

"It is really up to us -- civil society -- to take out pieces of this document, make our governments accountable, and move it forward," he said. "This document gives us a tool to a certain level, but I think as civil society in every country we should take pieces, not as a whole, and move it forward."

"As a person living with AIDS and a minority, I think the relative part (of the declaration) is prevention and treatment," Pedrazza also said..

"They are two very important components from a community perspective. We as a community often see one pitted against one another -- prevention or treatment. It is very important that we address both," he said. "You can see the relevance of both prevention and treatment in the document."

"Treatment has been a very delicate issue to address. Why? Because of the high cost of the medication, because of the budgets. But having treatment highlighted in the document, personally speaking, I think it is very, very, important," Pedrazza said.

"Living with AIDS for 10 years, I still reject that I am living with AIDS," he said. "Even though it is under control, I wish I was not living with AIDS."

Pedrazza said that "it's a big concern" that people will begin to think that because there is treatment, they don't have to take care to prevent HIV/AIDS.

"We should never leave the vanguard of prevention aside, because one little overlook of prevention might cause more infection," he said.

"Even here in the United States where we have access to treatment, we do have communities that do not have access to treatment. Even in the most developed countries there are pockets of communities where treatment is not available yet," Pedrazza said.

He added that there is also the issue of maintaining treatment. "It is an ongoing treatment. You can't take the medications for just a period of time and then stop it. It is on-going," he said.

Born in Colombia, Pedrazza, -- now an American citizen -- has lived in the United States for 12 years. He is actively involved in Latino community activities and serves on the board of directors of the Latino Commission on AIDS, an umbrella organization in New York State for several community-based organizations. He is also part of the global network of people living with HIV/AIDS, helping to bring the reality of people living with AIDS into political discussions and a voice to people living with AIDS around the world. Pedrazza is currently working in New York training health care professionals and technicians to better confront the behavioral changes the disease brings and sensitizing communities.

He said that U.S. delegates, NGOs and activists should have taken many valuable lessons from the special session and all its complimentary activities.

As Americans, Pedrazza said, "we have a lot to contribute to the world with our technology, with our experiences. We can share a lot of information, but definitely as an American I see we have a lot to learn from communities abroad," he said in discussing his time at the special session and work as part of the global network.

"Here in the United States we are fortunate enough to have resources ... but we should also look at countries where innovation and creativity have been used with very little resources," Pedrazza explained.

"We've lost a lot because we look for more resources and we are not as creative as people in the developing world have to be because they have no resources," he said. "They still have to do prevention, outreach to communities with no resources. If we could use that here we could ... make better use of our resources."