Mr. President, Excellencies
Mr. Secretary-General Ladies and Gentlemen,

I commend the President of the General Assembly and the Secretary-General for providing leadership in convening the General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS.

A challenge inspires human beings to respond. HIV/AIDS has dared us to come together and wage war on it. And today the world sits on so much wealth, knowledge and technology that collectively we can combat this epidemic.

HIV/AIDS is appallingly indiscriminate in its scope and devastating in its scale and impact. In last two decades, this stealthy killer has taken more than 21 million lives and orphaned 13 million children, as well as has currently infected 36 million people on earth, 96 percent of them in developing countries.

At a time when antiretroviral therapies and the growing awareness about safer sex are bringing down infection in rich countries, this pandemic is spreading like a wildfire in poor countries. If left unchecked, it threatens economic development, social cohesion, political stability, and food security in many states, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa but increasingly in Asia and elsewhere.

Hence, taking a comprehensive, concrete, effective and urgent action at national, regional and global levels becomes critical to contain and eventually eradicate this deadly pestilence.

Mr. President,

Nepal is estimated to have nearly 50,000 young people with HIV infection and 2,500 with full-blown AIDS. Poverty and ignorance lie at the root of this menace. The situation has been rapidly deteriorating from a low prevalence to high concentration epidemic.

Every year impoverished young men seeking employment outside and young women victims of trafficking, who end up in brothels, return from abroad with this terrible infection. They and home-grown sex workers and their clients have been transmitting the plague thick and fast. Combined, they constitute the overwhelming majority of the inflicted, followed by injecting drug abusers and children inheriting infection from their mothers.

Mr. President,

We broadly concur with the priorities for action the Secretary-General has outlined in his report. Nepal also welcomes his initiative to set up a global fund to help prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, mainly in needy countries.

Of course, assuaging the pain of the patients and making drugs affordable and accessible in poor countries must be our immediate focus. But prevention is our best hope and must be our top priority, through behavioural and structural measures.

Giving knowledge and power to people at risk to protect themselves and courage to the infected to come out of the state of denial and seek assistance, as well as to promote investment in research to develop vaccines against HIV/AIDS must be the cornerstones of a preventive strategy. Involving AIDS victims, respecting their human rights, and offering information, testing and counselling must form an integral part of such a scheme.

Above all, we must break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, disease and conflict to remove structural obstacles to our capacity to reverse HIV/AIDS. No strategy will defeat this malady without such a holistic approach.

Mr. President,

With its limited resources and capacity, Nepal has been trying its best to wrestle with the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. We have been updating the existing national strategy on HIV/AIDS, created a National Centre for HIV/AIDS, and earmarked a modest budget. A police cell has been formed to control trafficking in women and a campaign has been launched to bring awareness in high-risk areas. Government and non-governmental organisations have joined hands to control trafficking and provide support to its victims, as well as to prevent further spread of HIV/AIDS. We are encouraging the private sector to play a meaningful role in the process.

What we have been able to do is far too little to confront this horrendous disease squarely on a sustained basis. Nepal, a least developed country, needs external assistance to build its human and financial capacities to do the job. We, therefore, appeal to the international community to live up to its commitments made in various global compacts. The Millennium Summit should provide us the spirit in this noble task.

Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

HIV/AIDS does not respect national borders. Globalisation has intertwined our future, pulling down many of the traditional walls that protected us in the past. That is why joining forces to prevent conflicts to wage war on poverty, illiteracy, and HIV/AIDS and other diseases will be a good investment in our common future.

The world has the capacity to make a real difference. We need to bring our political will and commitment to make it happen.

Thank you all very much.