United Nations: US First Lady Laura Bush on Saturday proposed designation of a day in the year as the 'HIV Testing Day' to ensure more people know about their HIV status.
Addressing the high-level session of the UN General Assembly on AIDS, she stressed the need for spreading literacy, especially among women and girls, as a major tool to fight the deadly disease.
Noting the contribution being made by the United States in fighting the disease, she said President George W Bush's ABC plan is working and making a difference in the lives of the people.
The plan, which is slammed by several non-governmental and activist organizations, calls for abstinence, being faithful, and use of condoms.
Activists charge that the US is spending less than one-third of the money made available for fighting the disease on condoms, which is a major tool to fight the disease, and ignoring the drug users who get HIV through infected needles.
Laura Bush said the President's plan to spend $15 billion on containing the disease over the five-year period is working.
At the time, it was announced in 2003, she said, only 50,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa were getting the anti-retroviral treatment.
Their number has now gone up to 560,000 in the 15 focus countries in the region.
Now the HIV positive people are learning to live rather than waiting to die, she said in her brief 5-minute speech.
She said it was the duty of countries to educate their citizens to the danger and emphasised the need to train more nurses and medical personnel to fight the disease and enable people to live in dignity.
No country can ignore this crisis, for it respects no national boundaries and religion and devastates lives of both men and women and the rich and the poor, she added.
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