UNITED NATIONS, June 2 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday called on all heads of state and government to take personal responsibility for stopping the spread of the HIV/AIDS.

    Addressing national leaders at a special UN meeting to assess progress since 2001 on turning back HIV/AIDS, Annan said that turning the tide against this epidemic requires every leader to decide and declare that "AIDS stops with me".

    He told the plenary at the High-Level segment of the three-day General Assembly meeting on HIV/AIDS that "it requires all of you to make the fight against AIDS your personal priority not only this session, or this year, or next year but every year until the epidemic is reversed."

    The secretary-general noted that in 25 years, AIDS had changed the world, killing 25 million people, becoming the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 59 and inflictingthe single greatest reversal in the history of human development.

    "In other words, it has become the greatest challenge of our generation," Annan said.

    He finally expressed the hope that since so many governments were represented at the highest levels at the meeting, their presence signaled their real commitment to the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Enditem