TORONTO, 14 August: To effectively combat AIDS – the worlds “public enemy No. 1” – authorities must lose their distaste for prostitutes, premarital sex and drug addicts and give women more power over their own health, Bill Gates and others argued as a huge AIDS conference kicked off Sunday.
Prevention is crucial to controlling the still-growing pandemic, and that means encouraging safe sex, helping sex workers and keeping injection-drug users infection-free, the International AIDS Conference was told.
Despite recent infusions of private and public cash and promising new treatments, leaders in disease research and philanthropy noted, billions more every year would be needed to save the lives of all HIV patients.
Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, and his wife, Melinda, urged governments to increase spending on antiretroviral treatment to HIV-positive people, but said stopping new infection is the key.
And in a swipe at controversial US government policy that encourages abstinence in developing countries, they said prevention requires distributing more condoms, working with prostitutes and giving drug addicts clean needles.
– We need tools that will allow women to protect themselves, the Microsoft founder said in a speech to some of the 24.000 delegates to the International AIDS Conference.
The so-called ABC programme – Abstain, Be faithful and use a Condom – has saved many lives, Mr Gates told the conference of more than 20.000 delegates. But he said that for many at the highest risk of infection, ABC had its limits.
– Abstinence is often not an option for poor women and girls who have no choice but to marry at an early age. Being faithful will not protect a woman whose partner is not faithful. And using condoms is not a decision that a woman can make by herself; it depends on a man, said he, adding:
– We need to put the power to prevent HIV in the hands of women. This is true whether the woman is a faithful married mother of small children or a sex worker trying to scrape out a living in a slum. No matter where she lives or what she does, a woman should never need her partners permission to save her own life.
Gates also praised the US governments decision to devote 15 billion US dollar (88,5 milliarder DKR) over five years to fighting AIDS around the world, saying it has resulted in many more people getting drug treatment.
Speakers at the conferences opening session noted that much progress has been made since the 1996 event in Vancouver, which heralded the advent of drug cocktails that can curtail symptoms of the virus for years.
But just a small fraction of the worlds estimated 45 million people with HIV are receiving that antiretroviral treatment, while infection rates of 20 per cent or more continue to afflict some countries.
– HIV is the planets public enemy No. 1, said Mark Wainberg, the Montreal doctor who co-chairs the conference, adding that access to HIV drugs should be a human right.
Kilde: The Push Journal
