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UNITED NATIONS - The world meets the 25th anniversary of the first reported cases of AIDS today. To date, more than 65 million people worldwide have been infected by HIV, according to UNAIDS, 25 million of whom have died.

When the Centers for Disease Control published a report 25 years ago on five homosexual men in Los Angeles, little was known about the cause and transmission, but knowledge about the disease was quickly changing. In just a few months, the world became aware of the contagion that could infect non-homosexuals when similar cases were reported in injecting drug users and in the United Kingdom.

Today, international commitments to fight HIV and AIDS have gained momentum and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – set up in the landmark year (2001) of global commitment to the AIDS battle – has collected $4.9 billion in 131 countries to date. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in his Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS: Five Years Later, "For the first time ever the world possesses the means to begin to reverse the epidemic."

But as the Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha pointed out, there have been "missed opportunities."

"The greatest and most obvious gaps that survivors will wonder about and be angry about are the missed opportunities, the lack of political will and the lack of total commitment by those of us in leadership positions to use all that we knew and all that we had to fight the pandemic," he told a room of international delegates at the United Nations General Assembly high-level plenary meeting on Friday.

Byamugisha, the first Anglican priest in Africa to openly disclose his HIV-positive status, was the second person openly living with the disease to address the General Assembly.

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"I am a person of faith, a religious leader, and yes ... a person living with HIV," he said.

As the UNAIDS newly released "Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic" stated, "In just 25 years, HIV has spread relentlessly from a few widely scattered 'hot spots' to virtually every country in the world."

"I must confess to you that quite often I grow weary and frightened when I imagine how future generations will look back to this 25th anniversary of the suffering and death caused by AIDS," Byamugisha continued near the conclusion of the meeting.

While commitments are being strengthened at the church and global level, access to HIV prevention, care and treatment remains limited by unwillingness to address issues considered taboo, such as sex, sexuality and drug use. "This must change," stated the UNAIDS report.

The U.N. high-level meeting last week concluded with the adoption of a declaration on global commitment to achieve one of the Millennium Development Goals of universal access to AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010.

The new U.N. blueprint included a resolve for 20-plus billion dollars needed annually from 2008, rapid development of microbicides, better drugs and vaccines and ensuring access to them, a long-term response to the crisis management approach, and a response embedded in social change which involves the low status of women, sexual violence, homophobia and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination.

Echoing what international and U.N. delegates indicated, Byamugisha clearly stated, "To do this ... we need your total commitment."