Announcing a tough battle against HIV / AIDS, two leading voices, His Excellency Dr. Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation and Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited, one of India's fast growing pharmaceutical company came together to pledge their continuous support to fight HIV / AIDS all over the world with a specific focus to the African and Asian continent.

The main aim of this movement is to deal with the deadly pandemic, make the treatment and its drugs affordable for the vast population of underprivileged people and create social awareness so that the patients affected are treated by society with empathy & care and also remove the stigma attached to the disease, the afflicted patient and the family, Emcure said in a release.

Speaking on this occasion H.E. Dr. Kenneth D Kounda, First President of Zambia and chairman of the foundation said, "HIV / AIDS is a war that the whole world has to first realize and then fight against. Also, our learning in the African continent in general and Zambia in particular has given us various insights that this is just not a medical problem but it needs to be addressed at the society and family level also. Thus, it has to be tackled along with the medical side by addressing the stigma aspect, confronting the wall of silence and pushing for preventive measures."

On his association with Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited, he said, "Emcure has done some commendable work in the African continent in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Along with developing antiretroviral drugs which are affordable the company has worked along with us to raise awareness of the problem, counseling and other social issues."

Commenting on HIV/AIDS, A K Khanna - director (Operations) Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited said, "Today the disease has taken endemic proportions with South East Asia and India among the next in the list of HIV/AIDS affected countries. It is our strong belief that along with raising awareness & removing stigma attached with the disease, we need to continuously work towards more affordable drugs for patients and develop specific drugs for a section of the affected patients, whom society is yet to take notice of- our children."

Welcoming H.E. Dr. Kenneth D Kaunda on his visit, Mr. Khanna further added, "As a company we promise and pledge our continuous support and commitment in fighting this deadly disease to its extinction. Currently, we hope our efforts will help in raising the awareness of this disease, especially in India, as HIV/AIDS awareness is quite at its preliminary stage in the country."

According to the figures available, in the year 2003, India had half a crore people living with HIV. Among them, 0.55 lakhs are children. In Asia, the number of people living with HIV in 2004 is 7.1 million.