UN military planners asked member states on Friday for data on HIV infection among their military personnel, to strengthen efforts to prevent peacekeeping troops from contracting and spreading AIDS.
This is a sensitive issue in many countries, and Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of peacekeeping operations, said:
"No national government has to date informed the United Nations that one or more of its personnel has contracted HIV/AIDS while on mission."
But, he told the Security Council, "some peacekeepers come from countries with a particularly high incidence of the virus, and ... it is a fact that some peacekeepers are sexually active when on UN mission."
He added: "We must acknowledge that we do not yet have the means to quantify the extent of the problem."
Before the debate, Guehenno signed a memorandum of understanding with Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS, on training troops to avoid HIV infection, and on respecting the rights of civilian populations, particularly women.
Piot noted that 5.3 million people were infected with HIV last year and that 36.1 million people were now living with the virus or with full-blown AIDS, two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
One-third of the 38,000 troops and civilian police under UN command are serving in Africa, notably in Sierra Leone, where the largest current peacekeeping mission is stationed.
Piot said war was a driver of the AIDS epidemic, because it made people more vulnerable.
"They are less able to control the risk of infection, population mobility increases and levels of sexual coercion and drug use rise," he told the council.
But Piot said "nothing raises the emotional temperature" of debate about peacekeeping than the suggestion that troops be tested for HIV infection.
He said that he and Guehenno had agreed to set up a senior expert panel to analyse and formulate a comprehensive position on the issue.
The UN General Assembly has decided that the UN itself should not screen peacekeepers, insisting that this was a matter for the authorities in their countries of origin.
But, Guehenno said, it would be "an important and relatively minor investment for the organisation" to finance screening in troop-contributing countries which could not afford it.
He also noted that "member states, and not the United Nations, are responsible for the medical records of their contingents" and said:
"We would welcome any information from member states that would help us verify and understand the extent of the problem."
One UN official pointed out that "it is anecdotal that there is no HIV/AIDS in East Timor, but no-one has proved it."
The second largest UN peacekeeping mission, comprising 9,287 troops and civilian police, is based in East Timor.
The agreement signed by Guehenno and Piot said UNAIDS would help with training of troops at all stages of a peacekeeping operation, from the recruitment to demobilisation phases.
UNAIDS will also help draw up a code of conduct for soldiers.
An official in Guehenno's department said: "We make it part of a mission's budget that condoms be freely available."
The officials said "some missions have ordered condoms by the millions, but this is not really a condom issue."
Soldiers would be reminded of the human rights of civilians in the countries they served in, particularly women's rights, he said, adding:
"This has much more to do with attitudes than sexuality."