Report on the international AIDS conference in Toronto (Canada)

TORONTO — The 16th International AIDS Conference ended here on Friday [Aug. 18, 2006] after five days of discussions focused on how to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS by relying on the results of scientific research and practical methods. The international gathering ended with a warning that much more needs to be done to address the fundamental causes that allow the virus to spread globally.

“We must apply every effort to learn the reasons why people contract HIV,” said Helene D. Gayle, President and CEO of CARE, an international poverty-fighting organization, and co-chair of the conference. “We must change the existing social paradigm if we are going to keep pace with the virus. Otherwise, all the scientific advances in the world will not be enough...We have a clear responsibility to do the hard work ahead and fulfill our responsibilities to the 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS and the millions more who risk acquiring HIV every year.”

Four million people contract HIV every year, and it is projected that 60 million new infections will occur over the next decade. Existing prevention strategies could halve the number of potential new infections. According to CARE, however, fewer than one in five people currently at risk for acquiring HIV have access to those strategies. Officials also warn that nearly 90 percent of people in the world who have HIV do not even know they are infected with the virus.

During the Toronto conference HIV/AIDS experts said that it is crucial to supplement existing prevention methods by developing new tools, including microbicides - creams or gels that a woman could insert into the vagina, which stops the spread of the virus during sex - diaphragms, oral prophylactic therapy, circumcision, and herpes treatment. The ultimate goal, of course, is a vaccine that would eliminate HIV altogether.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been funding cooperative research efforts globally, but scientists are not convinced that a vaccine will ever be discovered. Some scientists think that a vaccine is at least 10 years away. That means preventing the spread of HIV is more critical than ever. Activists say programs that address underlying social factors, such as gender inequality and economic insecurity, which lead to the spread of HIV, must be continued.

“Poverty exacerbates the pandemic, while the pandemic contributes to poverty and inequality. If we are going to succeed in fighting AIDS, something has to change,” said John Watson, president of CARE Canada. “Nutritious foods and a steady income are critical to the health of those living with HIV. If people stay healthy, they can continue working and contributing to their families and communities. At the same time, if non-infected people are hungry and penniless, they often engage in risky behavior for day-to-day survival; and this contributes to the spread of AIDS.” Such risky behavior includes women and men becoming involved in the sex or drug trades.

Empowering women and putting an end to gender inequality was one of the primary themes of the conference. Ensuring property and inheritance rights, important for women’s economic empowerment, ranked high on the agenda. In many countries such rights are not guaranteed, delegates stressed in their presentations. To help ease the burden, some international organizations have started to provide micro- loans of several hundred dollars for women to start small businesses. Many have taken advantage of those loans.

“All roads lead from women to social change, and that includes subduing the pandemic,” said Stephen Lewis, the United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa and former Canadian ambassador to the U.N, whom many international leaders consider the moral conscience of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Grandmothers have been particularly hard hit by the virus, as they become the primary caregivers in many families-not just in Africa but elsewhere. After the virus has decimated their children and other family members, some grandmothers have been left to raise as many as 18 grandchildren.

Lewis helped some of these grandmothers from Africa attend the conference and tell their stories. Their experiences were covered by many international news organizations. Other delegates from Africa shared their experiences of economic empowerment that can be transferred to other nations. For instance, widows in Swaziland have started collective gardens and sold vegetables to support their families. Similar gardens have been established to help support orphans whose families have died of HIV/AIDS. Eliminating stigma and educating people about HIV/AIDS were also raised at the conference. The next international AIDS conference will be held in Mexico City in 2008.

Natalia A. F EDUSCHAK is an international health fellow with the U.S.- based Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on major health care issues (www.kff.org). The International Journalism Project is a new initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org) to support journalists with a strong interest in reporting on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and related health issues.