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Goanet mourns the passing of Jorge de Abreu Noronha in Portugal - Nov 27/07
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One in three people in the world's major industrialised countries "know little
or nothing" about the deadly HIV/AIDS pandemic and 25 per cent believe that the
problem has been "greatly exaggerated" by the media, a poll said.
The survey conducted by global polling firm Ipsos, however, found that 44 per
cent respondents, including 50 per cent in the US, are prepared to pay more
taxes to combat the disease.
The disease is estimated to have killed 28 million people in last 26 years.
The Global AIDS Attitudes Survey, published by the non-governmental
organization World Vision, reveals the awareness and attitudes of populations
in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, all members of the
"Group of Eight" industrialized nations, towards those affected by HIV and AIDS
globally.
Speaking at the launch of the survey on Thursday, the Director of the Joint UN
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Bunmi Makinwa underlined that "the more we
understand the epidemic, the better we can make policies."
Among the main findings of the Survey is that the more people know about HIV
and AIDS globally, the more concerned they are about the issue and the more
compassionate they are towards those directly affected by it.
The World Vision "Index of Concern," a tool for understanding the level of
concern each country feels towards the issue, finds that Canada leads the seven
nations surveyed for the highest level of empathy its residents feel toward
those affected by HIV and AIDS globally, with Japan ranking last. The others in
order are France, Germany, US, Italy and UK.
In addition, concern about HIV and AIDS globally is "on par" with the war in
Iraq. But poverty and hunger, climate change, and terrorism are of greater
concern to people than HIV and AIDS or the Iraq war.
"After more than 25 years more than a quarter of a century of news coverage,
education and prevention work, about one third of the people that we surveyed
in the seven countries for the report admit that they know little or nothing
about AIDS, one in three in the wealthiest nations in the world," said Richard
Stearns, President of World Vision.
"In the United States that represents about 70 million adults that say they
know little or nothing about HIV and AIDS or its impact," he added.
Noting that the Survey does contain "some element of hope," he pointed out that
80 per cent of people believed their governments should do much more to help
children who are orphaned by AIDS and AIDS-related illnesses.
Another "astounding" statistic is that 9 out of 10 people surveyed believed
that the global community has a moral obligation to respond to the AIDS crisis,
he said.
As to why so many people admit to knowing little or nothing about the problem,
he said the answer is simple. "For those millions of people the disease HIV is
simply not real. It is not personal. It is somebody else's problem and somebody
else's disease, and very often in a place very, very far away and remote from
their everyday lives."
In response, the challenge is to make HIV/AIDS more real to the public, "to put
a face on the disease" that kills 2.1 million people every year.
"AIDS will only become real, it will only become important when we see past the
statistics," he stated.
