World AIDS Conference rights here and now

World AIDS Conference: Rights here and now.

(12.07.2010) From 18 to 23 July, the 18th International World AIDS Conference of the International AIDS Society (IAS) will take place in Vienna. More than 25,000 participants from more than 100 countries around the world are expected. In addition to future strategies against the spread of the HIV virus, the protection and the human rights of people affected by HIV are discussed.

The IAS, based in Geneva, is headed by Professor Julio S.G. Montaner, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, is the largest independent association of immune disease experts. Their goal is to build a global movement of people working together to stop the spread of HIV by spreading and using scientific knowledge and treatments.

The immuno-resistance AIDS (from the English of Acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is considered since about 1980 as a separate disease. In the meantime, about 33 million people worldwide are said to have been diagnosed and about 5,500 people die every day.

In the western industrialized countries, those concerned can now be well treated medically, but in poorer countries the disease spreads and treatments are very costly and often impracticable. The motto of the conference is also directed against discriminatory and stigmatizing measures against HIV patients. According to the United Nations, people with HIV are being arrested or disabled in 57 countries around the world. The US had just lifted a 22-year-old entry ban by HIV-infected people at the beginning of this year. This puts them in a position to host the 19th World AIDS Conference next year.

In addition to the social aspects, recent research results, such as the discovery of the two antibodies VRC01 and VRC02, are discussed, which hinder the HI virus. US researchers published two sensational results earlier this week in the science journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is also one of the supporters of the congress.

Among the other topics that will surely be of interest to the approximately 2,000 media representatives arriving there is the important topic of "Children and AIDS" and the Central Asian / Eastern European region, in which about one and a half million people are said to be suffering from AIDS. (Tf)

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