Search for Cure for HIV/AIDS is Global Effort - Obasanjo at UN

President Olusegun Obasanjo said Sunday that Nigeria continue to count on the international community to find cures for the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other deliberating infectious diseases currently threatening the productive population of Africa.

Speaking at the 57th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Obasanjo said that unless the problem of HIV/AIDS was addressed with the commitment and urgency it deserved, programmes designed to improve the living conditions of the majority of humanity might not yield the desired results.

"Not only is the productive population of Africa being systematically decimated by HIV/AIDS, but also that the efforts to combat this and other diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases are diverting scarce resources away from development programmes and projects," President Obasanjo said.

He added that massive assistance was required from the international community to complement the efforts of individual countries.

On her part, he said, Nigeria would spare no efforts to combat these scourges, adding that her active participation through contribution to and management of the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS was among testimonies to her commitment to combat it.

September 18, 2002