Yearbook of the United Nations, 2004. Part 3, Economic and social questions. Chapter 13, Health, food and nutrition

Abstract

In 2004, the United Nations continued to promote human health, coordinate food aid and food security, and support research in nutrition. By the end of the year, close to 40 million people were living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and approximately 3 million died as a result of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related illnesses. The incidence of malaria showed no evidence of diminishing and tuberculosis infection rates were only reduced by a small margin in most parts of the world. Although stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other major diseases received political and financial support from donors, annual funding remained short. In an effort to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal of halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, the General Assembly decided to hold a high-level meeting in June 2005 to examine constraints in realizing the commitments set out in the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, which was adopted during its twenty-sixth special session in 2001 and served as a blueprint for global action against AIDS. The results of that meeting would, in turn, contribute to the review of progress on the United Nations Millennium Declaration, scheduled for the Assembly's sixtieth session in 2005. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS (UNAIDS), which continued to coordinate UN activities for AIDS prevention and control, sought to address the duplication of effort and fragmentation of resources through the “Three Ones” principle, adopted at a high-level meeting in Washington, D. C. By that principle, the donors gathered at the meeting agreed to coordinate their work, to promote a unified AIDS policy at the country level, and to seek a national evaluation system. The Economic and Social Council requested the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to guide Governments in dealing with HIV/AIDS in pre-trial and correctional facilities. In support of the Decade to Roll Back Malaria in Developing Countries, Particularly in Africa, 2001-2010, the General Assembly called on the international community to commit funds to develop new anti-malarial medicines that were effective against resistant strains of malaria. The Assembly also called for improved global road safety and invited the World Health Organization (WHO) to coordinate road safety issues within the UN system. With regard to tobacco control, the fortieth instrument of ratification for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, negotiated among WHO member States more than four years earlier, was deposited in November, enabling the treaty to enter into force in 2005. The World Food Programme (WFP) delivered 50 per cent of the year's global food aid, reaching 113 million people in 80 countries. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) continued efforts to implement the Plan of Action adopted at the 1996World Food Summit, which called on the international community to fulfil the Summit's pledge to halve the number of hungry people by 2015, and cooperated with WHO, among others, to tackle the current outbreak of avian influenza.