Health GAP
www.healthgap.org

For Immediate Release: 11 July 2004
Contact: Robert Dabney +05 08 86 113, rdabney@healthgap.org
Khalil Elouardighi, ACT UP, Paris 01 55 07 481
Nimit Tien-Udom, ACCESS Foundation 09 91 44 884
Karyn Kaplan, Thai Treatment Action Group +661-866-1238

XV INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE: THAI AND INTERNATIONAL ACTIVISTS TO PROTEST OPENING CEREMONIES

MARCH AND RALLY AT 4:00 PM Today - front of Food Center at the Muang Thong Flats Ð 1 KM behind IMPACT Arena

(Bangkok) Ð Activists from Thailand and the United States will host a global protest and march at the opening of the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok today, July 11th. In announcing the action, the groups said that they will demand accountability from heads of states, agencies and individuals who fail to effectively address the gaps and inequities in access to HIV/AIDS treatment.

'The purpose of our action is to make it clear that the world will no longer accept the broken promises or political barriers that deny access to vital prevention programs or treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS," said Kamon Uppakaew, chair of the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (TNP+). 'We will have thousands of people from every corner of the world, led by groups in Thailand and the United States, expressing their outrage at the actions of governments and corporations that have acted in collusion to deny people basic human rights when it comes to the greatest pandemic in history."

One of the key issues of the protest is the inadequate funding of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund).

'The Global Fund is facing a crisis because donor nations have not lived up to their commitments," said Sharonann Lynch, Director of International Policy for the United States-based international group Health GAP. 'The Global Fund was established to fund treatment for millions of people around the world. Every dollar that donors fail to contribute to the Fund is one day lost in the life of a person living with HIV/AIDS. Governments must be held accountable for the promises made in 2001 to fund the AIDS fight to the tune of $10 billion per year by 2005."

The activist groups will also take the opportunity of having the world spotlight on Thailand during the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok to highlight local issues of importance.

'The proposed Free-Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Thailand has deadly implications for Thais living with HIV/AIDS," stated Nimit Tien-Udom, Director of Thailand's ACCESS Foundation. 'Thailand now produces generic drugs that meet treatment needs at an affordable cost. Patent provisions in Free Trade Agreements like this one, directly threaten our public health model."

'Thailand's drug war has killed three thousand people in the last year through extrajudicial executions of drug users," said Paisan Suwannawong, director of the Thai Treatment Action Group (TTAG). 'Instead of taking lives we want our government to focus on saving them using harm reduction techniques like clean needle exchanges."

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