Mr. President.
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the President and Government of the Republic of Belarus our delegation sincerely welcomes the convening of the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on HIV/AIDS.
Being a responsible member of the international community, the Republic of Belarus fully shares a common concern over an increasing spread of HIV/AIDS in the world.

Mr. President,

Until 1996 the Republic of Belarus had been a country with a low level of the spread of HIV-infection. Annually from 5 to 20 new cases were registered. Just as elsewhere in the world, the sexual way of transmitting the infection was the most common way of HIV transmission in Belarus. A critical change occurred in 1996 as a result of a rapid spread of HIV-infection among injecting drug users. There were nine times as many new cases of HIV-infection registered in that year than in all the previous years since 1987.

As of June 1, 2001, 3587 cases of HIV infection have been registered in the Republic of Belarus, which makes it 37 cases per 100.000 people. At the moment, ,the most common way of transmitting HIV infection -78.42 per cent of all registered cases - is between injecting drug users. Of great concern is that a majority of infections- 80.82 per cent of the total number of cases - has been diagnosed among young people of the reproductive age. And 16.59 per cent of them are young people under the age of 20.
It is extremely worrisome that a tendency of HIV being spread from drug users to the population as a whole has been recently developing in Belarus.

In this regard, it should be stressed that while the number of HIV-infected young women has-been increasing, there has been also a dynamic increase in the number of children born by them. While in 1987-1995 HIV-infected women gave birth to 6 children, in 1996-2001 the respective number was as high as 170. Of this number 20 children were diagnosed as HIVpositive.

Mr. President,

The Government of our country considers the above-mentioned facts as imperative for the consolidation of efforts of the state and civil society in combating HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In order to maintain control over the spread of HIV-infection and to work out holistic measures to decrease this spread, the National Program on HIV Prevention was adopted. For the implementation of that Program, under the leadership of the Vice Prime-Minister the InterAgency Council on HIV and Venereal Diseases Prevention has been established designated to coordinate activities of various ministries, institutions and community-based groups.

Activities of relevant ministries and institutions are focused on the preventive measures among the population and, first of all, among the youth. Mass media also play an active part in these processes and all the information related to the HIV/AIDS has been circulating free of charge.
A great deal of attention is attached to the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. The provision of appropriate medical care to those people has been put in place. Advanced methods of treatment are practically applied, including, in particular, multi-component therapy, all funded from the national budget. To reduce the risk of vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS since 1997 we have been practicing drug-based preventive treatment of both the mother and the child, as well as artificial nurturing of infants and Cesarean birth. At the current stage the Government can help all those in need. Yet, in future, should the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS grow rapidly there will be a serious need for active international cooperation.

In the context of affordability of means and methods of HIV/AIDS treatment our delegation considers as extremely important the establishment of global and regional mechanisms for the provision of HIV-related drugs which should symmetrically compliment the appropriate domestic measures and strategies. As a way of reducing prices of HIV-related drugs we view as a critically important measure the development, where it is possible, of domestic pharmaceutical capacities of countries. It is to be noted that in Belarus an antiretroviral drug named "zamitsit" has been successfully synthesized and tested.

Mr. President,

Of the number of measures designed to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Belarus a great deal is addressed to the people with unsafe behavior. Such measures are implemented both by governmental agencies and within the framework of international projects. These projects are mostly run by non-governmental organizations with financial assistance of international donors. In particular, as many as 19 NGO's are currently implementing projects focused on the prevention of spread of narcotic drugs abuse practices, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and sexually transmissible diseases.

Mr. President,

A holistic approach towards combating HIV/AIDS adopted in Belarus has allowed us to somewhat stabilize the situation with HIV in our country, including the reduced share of the youth aged 15-19 in the total number of people infected with HIV/AIDS from 24,4% in 1996 to 9,6% in 2000; decreased HIV/AIDS incidence among conscripts from 6,7 cases per 1000 people tested in 1996 to 0,4 cases in 2000.

However, the activities intended to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS require huge economic expenses, which, multiplied by the specificity of the spread of the pandemic in the context of globalization, make absolutely indispensable the enhancement of appropriate international cooperation.

In this regard, at the global level we consider as extremely important the strengthening of the system-wide coordination within the United Nations in the area of combating HIV/AIDS, including through the provision of active support to the activities of the UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and its multilateral and bilateral partners. We would like to particularly commend a high profile of cooperation between the Government of Belarus and related UN agencies including country team in Minsk in the area of combating HIV/AIDS.

We also see as especially promising the consolidation of appropriate efforts of states at the regional and sub-regional levels. Such cooperation, in our opinion, could prove particularly effective for countries facing similar factors that influence the spread of HIV/AIDS. Appropriate measures could form an important part of urgent international action as a follow-up to the outcome of this UNGA Special Session.

Thank you for your attention.