Notes de l'Ifri - HIV-AIDS: A Security Issue Département des études de sécurité, Document de travail No. 8, Paris, Ifri, April 2005. About the strategic and security stakes of AIDS.

While it now seems to be accepted that security is a precondition for development, HIV/AIDS has yet to be fully recognized not only as a solidarity and development issue, but also as a human and strategic security issue. Within this scope, five aspects are analyzed:

1/ social and economic consequences of AIDS and human insecurity; social change as an instrument in the fight against AIDS;

2/ times of extreme insecurity, such as conflicts, and their interactions with the epidemic; the need for in-depth research in this area;

3/ role of armed forces as carriers and victims of HIV/AIDS, but also as potential agents of change;

4/ peacekeeping operations and the issue of systematic screening;

5/ difficulties created by crisis situations in terms of continuity of medical care; more broadly the difficult integration of HIV/AIDS aspects into emergency aid procedures.