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

Allow me to thank you for organizing this Special Session of the General Assembly. The massive attendance of the highest representatives of Member States highlights the importance and urgency that our Governments feel towards the global problem of HIV/AIDS.
To fight and defeat a powerful enemy we need to understand it. A pandemic is not an exception to such a principle. To defeat the disease we must understand its nature and its structure, the reason of its devastating effects, and furthermore the psychology and the behavior of its victims.

Let's put ourselves in the situation of an HIV/AIDS victim. What would our concerns be?
First, we may think how possibly could we have contracted the virus. It could have been through unsafe sexual relations, through exchange of needles using drugs, through unsafe blood transfusions, through birth.

Then we may think of our family; the people we got in touch with; those we could have transmitted it to; if we are going to leave our family without support; our children orphans.
We may think the reaction of the society and friends, how they will consider and treat us in the future, if they will look at us differently; if they will reject us. If we will be able to keep our job or to find a new one; if our condition will jeopardize our strength to carry on our work.
Will we be able to pay for drugs to increase the length of our life?

What meaning our life will have when we know, better than anybody else, that we are going to die soon.
These are questions that 36.1 million people asked themselves every single day, last year.

  How many answers and reassurances are we able to give them?

With this example, I just wished to underline that AIDS concerns all of us, regardless of our origins, our race, our habits, our sex life or culture. It concerns us from very close, much closer than most of us expect it to be.

If we consider that in some Countries one out of five adults is infected by AIDS virus, we can easily imagine it can jeopardize not only the lives of many families, but also the life of a Country, of a region, and of the whole world. The problem of AIDS, therefore, is not only a medical emergency, but also a social, cultural, and economic crisis.

San Marino, in its small dimension, is also affected by AIDS. Our infected people generally contracted AIDS through exchange of needles, injecting drugs. Due to the small size of my Country, and lack of appropriate legislation, most of our HIV/AIDS patients prefer to be treated abroad to be able to maintain privacy and secrecy.

My Government has tried to put into place a good information campaign and create a Government AIDS coordination policy to monitor any development of the infection and a system of surveillance of blood donors and blood transfusions.

Moreover, last year, a service, managed by volunteers, was activated, providing scientific information and counseling over the phone, guaranteeing total and absolute anonymity. The cooperation between the public structure and volunteer associations is an important tool to improve high quality of the health care system.

To stimulate international cooperation, since 1998, every year, the Ministry of Health of San Marino organizes an international symposium with the participation of many important immunologists.

Mr. President.

We strongly believe that the best form of prevention is a comprehensive education program. Fears and anxiety about the ways of contracting the virus or being associated with all the prejudice that surrounds the victims of this disease create heavy phenomena of discrimination and segregation and consequently an obstacle to the use of health services and health providers.

 Responsibility must be equally shared:
Governments should provide treatment, assistance, care and support to HIV/AIDS patients. HIV/AIDS patients should act with a greater sense of responsibility towards their community. Exchange of information should be provided timely and accurately. Pharmaceutical companies and research institutions should devote more efforts in the field of research giving priority to access of HIV drugs instead of to their financial interest.

Let me assure you, Mr. President, that San Marino will continue its fight against AIDS with all its strength and we will always be allied with the international community to combat this epidemic.
 

Thank you, Mr. President.