The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is pleased to announce the appointment of the speaker of the Fijian House of Representatives Ratu Epeli Nailatikau as UNAIDS Special Representative for the Pacific.

UNAIDS and WHO applaud the announcement made today by the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative of two new programmes to help expand AIDS care and treatment to children and to people living in rural areas.

Geneva, 30 March 2005 -- A recent advertising campaign is touting the benefits of vitamin therapy above antiretroviral therapy and claiming that antiretroviral therapy is toxic. These advertisements are wrong and misleading, said the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) today.

On International Women’s Day, we celebrate women – their strength, their capacity for caring and compassion and the range of achievements they have made in their public, professional, and private lives. It is also a day on which we reflect on some of the difficulties women face in their daily lives – even on Women’s Day.

Since this is my first press briefing of 2005, I feel compelled to begin with brief reference to the Tsunami, the Millennium Development Goals, the debt of African countries and “3 by 5”, the WHO/UNAIDS initiative to put three million people with full-blown AIDS into treatment by the end of 2005. Collectively, they form a backdrop for what I wish to say about the country visits to Malawi and Tanzania.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has renewed Dr Peter Piot’s appointment as Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations for four more years. “I am delighted that Dr Piot will continue to lead the response of the United Nations to HIV/AIDS for the next four years,” said Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “This is a crucial time in our fight against the epidemic, and in our work to mobilize the world against this unique threat to human development and security.

I wish to join today with the legions of activists and advocates in Africa and worldwide who salute the quite remarkable collaboration on the provision of anti-retroviral drugs, jointly announced by The Clinton Foundation, The World Bank, UNICEF and the Global Fund. This initiative, along with WHO’s

Nelson Mandela continues to be an icon in the struggle against HIV and AIDS through his unwavering and outspoken stance on stigma and discrimination towards those living with and affected by the epidemic.

Today is Human Rights Day, the 56th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the last of this year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. It is also a day on which intolerable numbers of women will suffer violent assaults, and on which many will be infected with HIV.

UNAIDS is pleased to announce the appointment of Mrs Mero Kececioglu-Kylicas as Special Envoy of UNAIDS.