As the world focused on the murderous advance of Aids on Wednesday with pledges, appeals, processions and concerts, the day was stamped by China’s warnings about its exposure to the epidemic.
In a World Aids Day message to China’s 1,3 billion people, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao took a further stride back from the state of denial about Aids that has gripped the country for years and began to change only in 2002.
China faces ”a stark situation,” Wen said bluntly. He called for ”still greater, substantial efforts” to stir public awareness about Aids and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
This would be backed by a nationwide mobilisation of officials to implement ”all preventive and control policies and measures”, Wen said. China officially estimates it has 840 000 people with HIV or Aids.
But many Aids experts contend the true figure is much higher; some estimates suggest the national tally could reach as high as 10 million by 2010 if little is done.
In India — named alongside China and Russia as targets after the destruction wrought by Aids in Africa — Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss announced that 1,5 billion condoms would be distributed countrywide, backed by an intense media campaign.
”We are going all-out, and within six months the whole country should know about HIV/Aids and its implications,” he told parliament.
Thousands of schoolchildren, health workers and recovered drug addicts carrying anti-Aids banners marked the day with processions, with more than 15 000 taking part in a parade in the southern city of Bangalore alone.
In Bangladesh, more than 5  000 people including sex workers and non-governmental organisation staff, took part in a procession from the Bangladeshi parliament.
The theme of World Aids Day 2004 was the danger posed to women and girls, who now account for 47% of 39,4 million people around the world with HIV or Aids, an increase of six percentage points since 1997.
In Europe, British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to make HIV/Aids one of the priorities of his presidency of the G8 club of top industrialised countries next year.
”The thing that has worked in respect of combatting Aids is when you’ve had a well-financed programme, locally led, with accessible health and educational help for people there,” he said in an interview with the BBC. ”The thing that is most frustrating of all is that we do know what works.”
Many European countries staged exhibitions and seminars on ways of tackling sexual coercion, poverty, lack of rights and empowerment in a male society, which are the known drivers for spreading HIV and Aids among women and girls.
That message was echoed by contestants at the Miss World competition, being hosted on the Chinese tropical resort island of Hainan.
”From the day we are born, we have no right to decide,” said Miss Tanzania, 19-year-old law student Faraja Kotta.
”Girls cannot decide whether they want to go to school, cannot decide who they will marry, cannot decide when they will be sexually active. Girls have no right to education, they are always second place.”
Church groups in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland were to stage services of solidarity for people with HIV/Aids and candlit processions to remember those who have died from the scourage.
Around 3,1 million will perish from Aids in 2004, the highest toll in any single year. More than 23 million people have have died since Aids first emerged in 1981.
In southern Africa, the world’s worst-hit region, governments renewed their vows to promote prevention, tackle stigma and discrimination and speed up distribution of antiretroviral drugs which keep the virus at bay.
Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika said he hoped a million Malawians, in a population of 11 million, would go for voluntary HIV tests next year, and set the 2005 target of boosting the number of people in free antiretroviral programmes from 9 000 to 80 000.
”It’s ambitious and achievable,” Mutharika said.
Aids has driven life expectancy below 40 years in nine African countries: Botswana, the Central African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The ceremonial highlight of World Aids Day was to take place in New York’s Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, where United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and UNAids Executive Secretary Peter Piot were to attend a evening of music and remembrance. Sapa-AFP