Two-thirds of people with HIV live in the Commonwealth

A staggering 72 per cent of women living with HIV come from Commonwealth countries, a symposium on global health organised yesterday as part of the Commonwealth People's Forum, heard.

Every year AIDS claims the lives of 10 times more people than were killed in last year's Boxing Day tsunami.

In many Commonwealth countries the HIV/AIDS reality is stark: two-thirds of the odd 40 million HIV infected people in the world are Commonwealth citizens.

The epidemic is ravaging some countries. In Botswana the life expectancy is just 27 years and in Zambia whole forests have vanished so that the wood could be turned into coffins.

For many women living in developing countries marriage puts them at risk of contracting the infection, Alice Welbourn, the chairman of the board of trustees of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS said.

She said most of the ICW's members, women living in 130 countries, had no idea that they had been at risk of contracting the infection, let alone that they were actually infected. Most had no say as to whom they had sex with, when they had sex and had no option of choosing safe sex practices.

"Most acquired the virus through unsafe sex in their own marriage bed," she said.

Young women, she said, are especially vulnerable, through physical factors, through their lack of education and their poor social, legal and economic status in society.

"Many are subject to violence, abuse and exploitation, all of which increase their risk of HIV infection," she said. Dr Welbourn pointed out that 76 per cent of young people with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are girls. Dr Welbourn was diagnosed with HIV in 1992 and can therefore associate with other female sufferers.

But she admitted that the difference between her and other HIV positive women living in developing countries was substantial.

"I am healthy because of good care, good nutrition and access to antiretroviral drugs since 2003. But many other HIV positive women in the world, many from Commonwealth countries, are living a very different reality."

She said the lack of enough food in many countries was a problem.

"Even I feel sick if I take drugs without enough food in my stomach, and I am certainly not undernourished," she said.

Richard Scheffer, the chairman of the Advocacy Committee of the UK Forum for Hospice and Palliative Care Worldwide, spoke about the importance of palliative care for all sufferers of life-threatening diseases, including HIV and AIDS.

He said the goal of palliative care - a treatment that provides symptomatic relief but not a cure - was to improve the sufferer's quality of life.

It was needed from diagnosis to death but it was not just going to happen - it needed to be included in governments' health policies.

Commonwealth Secretariat deputy Secretary General Winston Cox said although progress has been made to treat illnesses in Commonwealth countries, more funding was necessary.

He mentioned the influenza pandemic, which experts are saying could hit at any time, and spoke of the possible loss of life in Commonwealth countries, especially those affected by poor nutrition and HIV/AIDS.

With regard to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Mr Cox said: "Malta is where Africa and Europe meet; it is a well-chosen spot for CHOGM".