United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, criticized the United States for failing to deliver enough funds to tackle AIDS worldwide, saying the fight against terrorism was overshadowing the epidemic of the disease and its virus.

In the interview, Annan expressed disappointment that some of the US$15 billion earmarked by US President George W. Bushto tackle HIV/AIDS was not yet going to the global fund which is raising money for global cooperation to fight the disease.

"The global fund is ready to go. If individual governments begin to set up their own initiatives, they start from scratch, it takes longer, the money that they hold will not be spent for a long time," he said while he is attending the XV International Conference on AIDS in Bangkok.

Annan said he had hoped the US could at least contribute US$1 billion a year through the global fund, with the EU putting in another one billion.

With additional resources raised elsewhere, "the fund could have assured and sustained support through the next five years or so," Annan said.

He said he believed Bush was concerned about the impact of AIDS, but said it was now time to step forward and commit resources to that fight.

But Dr. Anthony Fauci, Bush's AIDS adviser said the criticism was unfair, as the US was by far the biggest contributor to the campaign to tackle and prevent AIDS.

The decision to distribute funds mainly bilaterally reflected initial concern on how the global fund would be managed, he told the BBC.

But Annan urged the US to put AIDS priority on the US's global agenda. He asked where was the "international solidarity" on AIDS, at a time when millions of dollars are being put into the fight against international terrorism.

Anita Tiessen, deputy director of UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), told the BBC, "There has not been enough money, but more importantly there hasn't been enough political leadership.

"It is a complicated disease, and it is complicated to prevent it because it is about sexual behavior. One of the most critical issues is that children are really being affected. We expect that by the end of the decade there will be 25 million children who are orphans because their parents have died of AIDS," he said.

"These are children who are then not getting an education, possibly having to raise their younger siblings, and very, very much at risk of exploitation by prostitution or trafficking," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 14, 2004)