Press Release

World AIDS Day Observed

OPEC Fund delivers message of encouragement

119/2005 December 2, 2005, Vienna, Austria
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About 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. On Thursday, December 1, countries around the world and international organizations observed the 18th World Annual AIDS Day around the theme "Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise,” by pledging renewed efforts in the global fight against the HIV and AIDS.

The number of adults and children infected with HIV/AIDS reached 40.3 million in 2005, the highest level ever. Some three million are expected to die of AIDS this year alone. Africa, with only 10 percent of the world's population, has more than half of its HIV cases.  Thus far, HIV has infected some 56 million people and claimed the lives of an estimated 22 million, one-fifth of them children.

Feeling a strong obligation to contribute to the global fight against the disease, the OPEC Fund established in 2001, a Special Grant Account for HIV/AIDS Operations with an initial endowment of US$15 million. In September 2000 and March 2001, the Fund lent its support to two major conferences held to broaden awareness and mobilize human and financial resources to fight the disease. Since then, the Fund has been working in close cooperation with other international organizations engaged in the global campaign against the disease, meeting with them at the highest level to exchange views and study where the Fund's contribution will have the greatest effect.

Recently, the OPEC Fund concluded a partnership with UNICEF. Each agency is contributing US$4 million to co-finance the OPEC Fund/UNICEF Mother/Child Global Project to Fight HIV/AIDS. The project will cover a total of 17 countries, 11 of them in Africa, four in the Caribbean and two in Asia.

The project is the ninth major initiative to be financed from the Fund’s HIV/AIDS Special Account. Subsequent replenishments have boosted the account to US$50 million. Apart from UNICEF, the Fund is currently working with a number of other lead agencies, including UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, ILO, WHO and IFRC, to implement anti-AIDS projects in all developing regions of the world.

In a statement, the Director-General of the OPEC Fund, Mr. Suleiman J. Al-Herbish today remarked that even greater efforts will need to be made to help contain the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS and assist the millions facing increased threat, particularly orphans and other children.