A Watershed in the Fight against HIV/AIDS 

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has become a global crisis that demands global action. In many countries, it is triggering national emergencies, wiping out human lives and decades of hard-won social and economic gains.  

Despite determined efforts to hold the epidemic in check, it shows no signs of abating. Its scale and impact far exceed even the worst-case predictions made a decade ago.  

In the past 20 years, more than 56 million people have been infected with HIV—almost equal to the population of the United Kingdom. Some 22 million have died of AIDS-related illnesses, 4.3 million of them children. 

Only an extraordinary worldwide response can reverse its spread. 

It can be done. The past two decades have provided the world with a wealth of experience. We know what works in the fight against HIV/AIDS. 

Needed are the resources and the political commitment to apply that knowledge on a global scale.  

To move this fight forward, the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000 decided to convene a Special Session on HIV/AIDS.  

The meeting will be held in New York on 25-27 June 2001—almost 20 years to the day after the first clinical evidence of AIDS was reported. 

The Special Session on HIV/AIDS is a watershed event. Its role is to galvanize leadership at the highest levels, intensify and accelerate international action, and mobilize the required resources.  

Top-level national delegations will review action plans that have proven most effective. They will consider new steps and new partnerships. Interactive round-table discussions will bring together government leaders, AIDS activists, nongovernmental organizations and private sector partners. 

The aims of the Special Session are necessarily ambitious. The Session must lay the solid foundation for a global consensus on the essential elements of a successful response.