Better testing is the key to fighting the global AIDS pandemic, Richard Holbrooke said on Friday in Beijing, where he was in town to encourage Chinese businesses to play a role in stopping the spread of the disease.

The former ambassador to the United Nations who now heads the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS also had harsh words for the World Health Organisation, saying its emphasis on providing antiretrovirals was misplaced when most of those with the disease do not know they are infected.

“The failure to test is the weakest link in the policy. If testing is not encouraged, AIDS will become, worldwide, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction,” he told a news conference.

Holbrooke praised China’s efforts to fight AIDS, saying the SARS outbreak in 2003 had been critical to changing central government’s attitudes toward the disease by highlighting the economic consequences of allowing its spread.

He had harsher words for the WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative to provide antiretroviral therapy to 3 million people with HIV/AIDS by 2005, saying it was an advertising slogan that could not be fulfilled and that just 800,000 had been reached to date.

“Even if they did get to 3 by 5, they wouldn’t catch up with the spread. The only way to get there is with testing,” he said.

POLITICAL SENSITIVITY

WHO officials in Beijing were not immediately available for comment.

Holbrooke’s emphasis on testing highlights the problems remaining in China, where, despite high-level shows of support, prevention is still hampered by social stigma and political sensitivity.

Holbrooke said testing should be carried out routinely for patients undergoing operations, couples getting married and for pregnant women, but he acknowledged compliance with such a policy would be difficult without guarantees of confidentiality.

That presents a challenge for China, where the government was slow to acknowledge the epidemic and claims it has fewer than 1 million cases - a figure many AIDS organisations say is a gross underestimate.

At the highest levels, the government’s attitude has changed. “The government will further enhance legislation on prevention and treatment and invest additional resources in this work,” Health Minister and Vice-Premier Wu Yi said.

“I hope Chinese businesses will take advantage of the growth of their companies to…take steps to harness and develop workers’ enthusiasm for this cause,” she told Friday’s forum, aimed at harnessing business resources and skills to fight AIDS.

Her comments followed the lead of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who have both visited hospitals to shake hands and chat with AIDS patients.

But China has also been criticised for not holding any local officials accountable for a blood-selling scandal involving state-run health clinics. Also, journalists who travel to the countryside to report on the disease are routinely detained.

“China is at a crossroads in the fight against AIDS,” Holbrooke said. “They’re either going to stop it and strangle it, or it’s going to spread.”