*EPF104 07/12/2004
AIDS Conference in Bangkok Comes at a Turning Point in Epidemic
(Opportunity exists to move anti-disease efforts to new level) (870)

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Bangkok -- The XV International AIDS Conference began in Bangkok July 11 with organizers predicting that the event could mark a turning point in the history of the 23-year-old epidemic.

The conference is held biennially and is considered the largest global meeting focusing on the scientific and social aspects of the epidemic. It is hosted by the International AIDS Society (IAS), partnered this year with the government of Thailand and nongovernmental organizations focused on the disease. The IAS reports that 17,000 health care workers, scientists, researchers, leaders, activists and people living with AIDS are participating in the July 11-16 event.

At a press conference just hours before the opening ceremonies, IAS President Joep Lange said the conferences have "changed the way the world looks and thinks of AIDS" since the first meeting held in Atlanta in 1985. He said the Bangkok meeting has the potential to be a "watershed event," moving the world's fight against AIDS to a new level, if there is a successful realization of the conference theme "Access to All."

IAS background documents say the theme is to promote "access to essential HIV related science, prevention, treatment and resources for all people of the world, regardless of geography.... It is access for all infected and affected groups."

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Executive Director Peter Piot said the context of the conference is "fundamentally different" than any of the previous sessions convened by the IAS because now some people in the developing world are receiving treatment with the antiretroviral drugs that have prolonged survival and returned quality of life to HIV-infected persons in the developed world. The challenge ahead is to rapidly expand treatment delivery to millions more who need it, Piot said.

UNAIDS released a report a week before the conference estimating that 38 million people worldwide are infected with the virus, with nearly 5 million newly infected in 2003 alone.

At the same news conference, Dr. Stu Flavell, executive director of the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+), another sponsoring organization, said the Bangkok event comes at a "critical moment" in the course of the epidemic. He pointed to several major initiatives now working to deliver antiretroviral treatments to people infected with the AIDS causing the HIV virus -- the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the U.S.-sponsored President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), delivering treatment and care in 15 of the most seriously stricken nations; and the World Health Organization's "3 by 5" program, aiming to deliver AIDS treatment to 3 million people by the end of 2005.

"There's no question that HIV care can be delivered anywhere there are people living with HIV/AIDS," said Flavell. Whether the world will rise to the challenge of providing access to all is the question now in balance, he said, in the face of an epidemic that is "not polite."

The AIDS epidemic "is about sex and drugs and death, and none of those things are comfortable topics," Flavell said. He said the effort to help people infected with HIV will require decades of commitment from the global community despite the social and cultural discomfort with the ways in which the virus is transmitted.

At a separate news conference, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias said the Bangkok meeting is "an opportunity for the world to come together to fight this disease, HIV/AIDS, which is a remorseless killer."

The leader of the U.S. delegation to the conference, Tobias called for a sense of unity to achieve "maximum effectiveness" in the battle against the disease. "It is my hope that all of us can leave whatever other agendas we may have at the door and work together because we simply must find ways to put our energy into collaboration."

Tobias said he will also be working this week to encourage other nations to join the United States in the heightened commitment it has made over the last two years in tackling the epidemic in the developing world.

"This year America is putting about twice as much money to work in this fight as all the other donor nations of the world combined, and we need every donor nation to step up its commitment," he said.

Tobias also called for a collaborative exchange of ideas on how best to address the problems of providing treatment and care, expanding treatment efforts and coping with the social ravages of the epidemic.

The United States has been working for 20 years in the developing world to help stop the epidemic. The current $15 billion initiative PEPFAR aims to treat at least 2 million HIV-infected people with antiretroviral therapy, prevent 7 million new infections and care for 10 million orphans and other people affected by the disease. PEPFAR is targeted to 15 nations that are home to about half of all the world's HIV-infected persons.

Beyond the PEPFAR initiatives, the U.S. Agency for International Development operates AIDS program in partnerships with local governments and organizations in almost 100 countries.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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