Health experts discuss global HIV reponse

Unpublished
Category: Science
Durban, South Africa - More than 18,000 delegates from around the world are in South Africa to attend the 21st International AIDS conference which will discuss the global HIV response. Improving access to antiretroviral treatment, reaching priority groups and consolidating a strategy for ending AIDS by 2030 are high on the major summit's agenda , in what experts describe as a rare opportunity for policymakers to build on some of the big gains of the past decade. The five-day conference, which started today, is the largest on any global health or development issue. Participants include doctors, politicians, activists, researchers, public health experts and hundreds of journalists. The city of Durban previously hosted the AIDS conference in 2000, a summit widely credited for changing the way experts and policymakers approached the pandemic. Access to ARV treatment is on the rise with some 17 million people globally on medication. This is 22 times the number in the year 2000. As a result, AIDS-related deaths have reduced by 35 percent and scientists are talking about a possible cure. But the numbers are still staggering. According to UNAIDS, at least 36 million people worldwide are HIV positive. In 2014, more than 1.2 million people died of AIDS. Crucially, while new infections were declining in some regions, they were on the rise in others and among different populations. People living HIV will feature prominently in many of the sessions. Some of the key note speakers include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's deputy president. Organisers say the conference "will highlight the latest accomplishments and challenges in a rapidly expanding area of scientific inquiry that few could have imagined at the first Durban conference". Dr Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS programme of research in South Africa (CAPRISA), said the hope was that the conference would give the international community an opportunity "to take a long hard look at what we are doing in addressing HIV.(FA)

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