(Geneva, March 21, 2003) In his first speech to the WHO General Assembly, the incoming Director General J.W. Lee committed the WHO to reaching the goal it first announced at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona in July, 2002 Ð that 3 million people living with AIDS in developing countries receive anti-retroviral therapy for the treatment of HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005.

AIDS activists applaud this modest yet attainable goal of treating half of the six million people in clinical need of antiretroviral therapy within 2 _ years. But they also emphasize that the WHO needs a plan to reach this target which must include technical support to developing countries to improve health care capacity and to expand treatment programs. "Without a plan for actually scaling up treatment both globally and within impacted countries, the promise of treatment will be a cruel joke," said Sharonann Lynch of Health GAP. "SARS has shown that the WHO is capable of the comprehensive, well funded, aggressive response that the AIDS crisis requires. The WHO as the world's leading public health institution has to do its homework to deliver a plan to treat three million people living with HIV/AIDS by 2005."

The comprehensive plan must also include a commitment to expanding the WHO's medicines pre-qualification project, as well as support for medicines policies that prioritise access to lowest cost, quality medicines for AIDS, TB and malaria, including generic medicines.

In order for large-scale up of treatment, countries must receive adequate funding. Activists point to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria as the best financing mechanism in the fight against AIDS, which is virtually out of funds and faces a budget shortfall of $1.4 billion for the third round of proposals due in the fall of 2003. "The Global Fund needs money now and a regular flow of money in the future based on fair share contributions by rich countries," said Professor Brook Baker of Health GAP.

To counteract the underfunding of the Global Fund, a new Fund-the-Fund Campaign has been launched internationally to pressure rich countries to support the Global Fund, which is the only mechanism currently supporting HIV/AIDS treatment programs in Africa and other poor countries. "People dying of AIDS can't wait for the U.S bilateral program which is not even funded let alone operational," according to Asia Russell of Health GAP. "A lack of planning and the absence of sustainable and proportionate funding will perpetuate a worldwide system of medical apartheid that condemns poor Africans to death when all necessary ingredients are available Ð drugs, expertise, and money."

"Three million in treatment by 2005 is feasible," said Dr. Alan Berkman of Health GAP, "and an even higher percentage each year thereafter, if the WHO works hard to fulfil Dr. Lee's promise and the G8 countries contribute the needed resources on a proportionate and sustainable basis."

Without the Global Fund, activists warn that: