Expert warns against complacency on AIDS

One of Australia's leading experts on HIV and AIDS is warning the world is facing a "rolling holocaust" because millions of sufferers are being denied life-saving treatment.

Bill Bowtell, the director of the HIV/AIDS Project at the Lowy Institute, was one of the architects of Australia's response to AIDS.

He blames the global financial crisis for a sluggish response to the pandemic, which now affects 35 million people around the world.

"People must understand that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is just a real disaster that came in the 80s and some countries did well, some people did well, but mostly the world didn't do well," he said.

"We can't just think it is part of the furniture, even in Australia.

"The new rate of infections is rising off a very low base and each one of those infections is avoidable."

Mr Bowtell has described the pandemic as a "rolling holocaust".

"Anything that is killing 2 million people a year is not to be taken as normal," he said.

"And it is worse because we can do something about it.

"One of the great problems with the reporting of HIV and AIDS is that people become apathetic or they think that nothing can be done.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. If we get treatment into the mouths of the people who need it, and we fund that properly, and we put the resources behind it, we can make our lives immeasurably better. We can save their lives.

"One of the big problems this year is that the global financial crisis is really heavily impacting on the ability of the global community ... to attract the support that is necessary to get on top of the HIV pandemic.

"But that means that governments like Australia have to step up to the mark.