AIDS conference opens in Sydney, Australia

By ASNS

Reuters is reporting that the world's largest scientific HIV/AIDS conference opened in Sydney Australia on Sunday with experts calling for more funding for research.

Roughly 5,000 delegates from more than 130 countries are attending the conference in Sydney this week to hear from the world's top experts in the fight against the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Delegates will be shown evidence from trials in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa that circumcision can reduce the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by about 60%.These trials confirmed previous studies which have shown circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection among heterosexual men.

Muslim and Jewish men are circumcised in accordance with religious beliefs.A briefing note said male circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa would prevent 5.7 million new cases of HIV infection and 3 million deaths over 20 years.

The conference also issued a declaration urging governments to allocate 10% of all resources for HIV/AIDS into research."Science has given us the tools to prevent and treat HIV effectively. The fact that we have not yet translated this science into practice is a shameful failure," Pedro Cahn. the president of the International Aids Society.

It is predicted that global AIDS treatment will be significantly less than the universal target to have five million people being treated by 2010. This bleak prediction because many of the world's impoverished people have no access to the drugs they need.

The United Nations reports that nearly 40 million people are infected with the AIDS virus and that treatment had drastically increased from 240,000 people in 2001 to 1.3 million by 2005.In June, leaders from around the world met at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany.

It was at this summit that the target of providing AIDS drugs over the next three years to approximately 5 million people was set.

Anthony Facui, who advises the White House on the HIV/AIDS virus, said the message at the conference would be mixed as a lot had been accomplished but there was still much to be done."We still now are only treating 28% of the people who actually need therapy. We cannot sustain a successful effort without prevention," Faucui said.

Faucui also told reporters it is estimated 60 million people would be infected by 2015."AIDS is no longer a death sentence for those who can get the medicines. Now it's up to the politicians to create the "comprehensive strategies" to better treat the disease."--William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the forty-second President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001.

Before his Presidency, Clinton served nearly twelve years as the 50th and 52nd Governor of Arkansas. He was the third-youngest person to serve as President, behind Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, and is known as the first baby boomer President.

For more information on the HIV/AIDS pandemic check out the following sites!
International Aids SocietyInternational AIDS Society USAJoint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS