Mr. President
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

1. Finland fully aligns herself with the statement given by the distinguished Minister of Health and Social Affairs of Sweden on behalf of the European Union.

2.  In the past twenty years HIV/AIDS has turned out to be a global crisis that affects all sectors of life. HIV/AIDS is a severe socio-economic and development problem, which needs to be reflected as human rights and social protection issue. This is why the UN is the natural global platform for discussion on policies, priorities, and actions against the pandemic.

3. We highly appreciate the central role of UNAIDS in combating HIV/AIDS pandemic. Having chaired - during the previous year - the Programme Co-ordinating Board of the UNAIDS I am very familiar with the hard work the UNAIDS has done, especially by developing the Global Strategy Framework on HIV/AIDS. It is evident that Finland strongly supports this strategy formulated by UNAIDS.

Mr. President,
4. Prevention of the further spread of the pandemic should be the major focus of our response. The quality primary health care structures are the key issue here. A sound, universally accessible health care system, including sexual and reproductive health as well as social and psychological support and care, is a cornerstone of prevention and the basis for the treatment. We know of the success stories from countries where a functioning health care system has been put in place with the aggressive national intervention programmes. Ultimately, it's the accumulation of these successes that will put an end to the spread of HIV.

5. What about people already infected? Access to treatment has become one of the major issues in the battle against HIV/AIDS. New anti-retroviral medicines give hope to millions of people living with HIV/AIDS. Finland welcomes the decline of the prices of ARV-medicines. We should explore the ways in which the latest inventions of the pharmaceutical industry would benefit also the people in the developing countries.

We should not, however, forget that a drug is not useful until it has reached the patient. To deliver medicines we need the primary health care services. This is especially the case with the anti-retroviral -drugs requiring long, systematic and supervised treatment.

6. Inadequately implemented anti-retroviral treatment can turn out to be a disappointment to the patient with severe side effects. Unsupervised treatment can also facilitate the spread of resistant viral strains and in the worst case - if the patient does not change her/his sexual behaviour or the use of injecting drugs - may even speed up the spread of the epidemic. Even in difficult circumstances good results have been gained by using the anti-retroviral drugs in preventing mother to child transmission. This approach should be intensified.

7. If we want to scale up the resources for antiretroviral treatment, we should assure that this share is not taken away from the prevention.

Mr President,
8.  The Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst affected region for the HIV/AIDS epidemic and needs to be the focus of action. However, the situation has become worse in other regions, thus calling for urgent preventive measures. We are seeing the explosion of the HIV/AIDS -epidemic in Eastern Europe where the population has become more vulnerable because of the changes in the socio-economic and cultural conditions.

9. We lost many important years in the prevention because we were shame to call things in their correct names. I sincerely hope that the same mistake is not repeated in other regions. We all have this kind of cultural and religious tabus. We do not have any other alternative than to overcome our tabus like people in Africa have done in recent years. The improved results are clearly seen now.

How could prevention be successful, if we do not identify the vulnerable groups and call them their correct names? All these groups need different kind of interventions; men having sex with men need different types of interventions than i.v. drug users and commercial sex workers and their clients need other types of interventions than young girls without social protection etc.

One specific vulnerable group are the young girls with low social status and education. Gender equality and empowerment of women are key elements in reduction on vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS.

Mr. President,
11. We have learnt that no single approach will contain the epidemic. To meet all necessary demands we need billions of dollars of money and other resources. To show our commitment to this task, my government has decided to contribute 40 million Finnish marks to UNAIDS still this year. Also in the future Finnish government intends to keep the support to HIV/AIDS -programmes at the considerably higher level than in the past.

12. Finland welcomes, along with the EU, the establishment of a new global fund for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We feel strongly that there should be only one global fund for this purpose. The fund must be able to support capacity building and integrated health care systems in developing countries. It is essential that the fund adds value to existing resources and supports the implementation of ongoing development processes.

13. Thank You, Mr. President.
 
 
 
 

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