People around the world marked World AIDS Day by focussing on the need to protect women and young girls, as Canada announced $105 million in new funding for the cause.

International Co-operation Minister Aileen Carroll said this was an investment in the future.

"You cannot be heading up a development agency and not understand that if we don't defeat this," she told Canadian Press in an interview. "Then years and years of development -- and development's a long-term investment business -- it wipes it out."

Women and girls make up about 47 per cent of HIV/AIDS victims worldwide, the global agency said, although that proportion is growing.

"We will not be able to stop this epidemic unless we put women at the heart of the response to AIDS," said Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS, in New York on Wednesday.

Studies in Africa show a link between sexual violence and HIV transmission, according to the World Health Organization.

Since heterosexual transmission is the dominant means of HIV infection on that continent, 57 per cent of infected Africans are girls and women, according to a UNAIDS report.

Women aged 15 to 24 are three times more likely to be infected with the HIV virus than males in the same range, it said.
A lack of education about human sexuality and prevention of infection was also a factor, it said.

"Prevention methods such as the ABC approach -- Abstinence, Be faithful and use Condoms -- are good, but not enough to protect women where gender inequality is pervasive," Piot said. "We must be able to ensure that women can choose marriage, to decide when and with whom they have sex and to successfully negotiate condom use."

The Canadian funding includes a $15 million contribution to an international partnership working to develop microbicides, a promising alternative in societies where condom use is frowned upon.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the world should fall into despair at the depth of that area's problems.

"Part of the problem is that I think people get fatigued and tired with looking at Africa because it all seems so hopeless," Blair told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"It isn't. There are things that can be done and there are real success stories."

World events

Around the world, from Armenia to Zambia, events were held to focus public attention on the havoc being wreaked by AIDS and the HIV virus.

Worldwide, about 45 million people are infected with the HIV virus that eventually leads to AIDS.

To show its support for the fight against AIDS, South Africa's cricket team wore red ribbons during a match against India.

"As we all know, South Africa is among the worst afflicted countries and we all have a responsibility to do something about it," team captain Graeme Smith told the South African Press Association from Calcutta, India.

There was a candlelight memorial service in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.

Serbia-Montenegro featured live TV and radio shows to raise awareness of how the disease spreads.

Estonia held a concert called "Open Your Eyes."

In Portugal, which has one of Europe's highest rates of new AIDS infections, an association that supports AIDS patients opened a new headquarters. Portuguese artists donated works to be sold at a fundraising auction.

In downtown Copenhagen, one candle was to be lit to commemorate each of the 1,800 people who have succumbed to AIDS in Denmark.

With files from The Associated Press