New covenant to make health care a basic human right needed

With 3 million people in low- and middle-income countries now receiving antiretroviral therapy, Gregg Gonsalves of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, called the roll out of HIV treatment one of, if not the most, ambitious public health undertakings of our lifetimes.

Speaking at AIDS 2008 he described how this milestone was reached despite powerful critics who warned that providing antiretroviral therapy was the wrong thing to do. He then described the operational and political barriers to sustaining and expanding access to AIDS treatment in the years ahead.

In his remarks, Gonsalves called on those who recently have begun attacking AIDS funding and programming to recognise the innovations and momentum the AIDS response has brought to the entire field of global health. He urged such critics to join with the AIDS community in moving towards "health for all" — the provision of comprehensive primary care to all who need it — which was a central tenet of the Alma-Ata Declaration issued by World Health Organisation member states 30 years ago.

While this goal has long eluded the world, Gonsalves urged a new covenant between communities, governments, United Nations agencies, academics, health care workers and scientists to build on what has been achieved in AIDS to make health, not a privilege for a few, but a fundamental human right for all.