Global HIV/AIDS Meeting to Convene in Barcelona

"Knowledge, and commitment for action" is the theme of the XIV International AIDS Conference to be held July 7-12 in Barcelona, Spain. The biennial event will bring together more than 14,000 physicians, medical care providers, health policy makers and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Organized by the International AIDS Society since 1985, this conference has become one of the most significant global meetings focusing on the epidemic and creates a global forum for discussion of the many social and medical issues that surround a disease that now infects 40 million people around the globe, and has already claimed the lives of about 20 million.

The U.S. delegation attending the meeting will convey the Bush administration's commitment to partnership in a unified global struggle to tame the epidemic. Secretary of State Colin Powell restated the depth of that commitment in a June 24 speech delivered in Washington. "This government will commit all of its resources, all of its energy, all of its leadership ability, to playing its part," Powell said.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson will lead the U.S. delegation to the conference. In a July 1 statement, Thompson also emphasized the importance of partnerships in the anti-disease strategy. "As a country, the United States is committed to working with other nations and the private sector to achieve scientific breakthroughs and build a stronger infrastructure to deliver better treatments to those who need it most."

Offering further specifics about the message U.S. delegates will take to the meeting, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Jack Chow said in a Washington File interview that the United States is dedicated to the search for a new generation of medicines to treat the disease, and for the development of better systems of care for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Chow said, "Collectively, through alliances, through partnerships, through compelling commitment by individuals and organizations, we can make a difference."

The creation of multi-national partnerships and alliances bringing together governments, businesses, private philanthropic foundations and nongovernmental organizations is one of the hallmarks of progress in the campaign to battle the disease in recent years, officials say. " As horrifying as the disease is, this is an opportunity for all sorts of sectors to come together unlike ever before," said Scott Evertz, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. "We're already seeing that," he added, speaking in a Washington File interview.

The UN General Special Session on HIV/AIDS held in June 2001 put governments around the world on record recognizing the severity of the epidemic. The declaration adopted at the close of the session emphasized the need to upgrade treatment, care and health systems, and to end the stigma and discrimination that surround the disease in many parts of the world.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria came into being in January and issued its first grants in April after discussions for the creation of an independent multi-sectoral entity that could collect funds and distribute them to local-level projects with specific plans for how to improve treatment, increase education and prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS.

The United States is the single greatest donor to the Global Fund with multi-year contributions of $500 million.

An international alliance has also been formed with the express purpose of developing vaccines against HIV and tuberculosis, which is an opportunistic infection that kills one-third of all AIDS patients whose compromised immune systems are unable to ward off the respiratory disease.

"We see these alliances as a signal of commitment by the private sector and NGOs to bring together their expertise," said Chow.

Alliance was also a theme for Thompson and Evertz on a four-nation trip to Africa in April. They held discussions with other leaders on how to heighten efforts against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, what Thompson called at that time "the most devastating public health pandemics of the modern age." On that trip, Thompson signed agreements with both South Africa and Mozambique to bolster disease education, prevention, counseling and testing programs.

The XIV International AIDS Conference opens just weeks after President Bush announced another initiative in the campaign against the disease -- one to prevent the transmission of the virus from pregnant mothers to their newborn infants.

Powell said June 24 that stemming the transmission of HIV from mother-to-child is "something that we know how to do, something that is not that difficult, something that it would literally be criminal" to fail to pursue.

The administration has committed $500 million to mother-to-child-transmission (MTCT) prevention campaigns targeted at regions where the epidemic is particularly severe -- Africa and the Caribbean. Chow said, "We will provide care in terms of medication, social support, family support. We will also provide care through the building of public health infrastructure through a proposal that will pair American hospitals with their counterparts in Africa or the Caribbean."

In order to make effective progress against HIV/AIDS, Evertz said, programs must have this kind of multi-pronged approach -- prevention, treatment of opportunistic infections, treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that inhibit the growth of HIV and control the disease, and building the health care infrastructure that allows developing nations to properly administer ARVs and treatment. That is the kind of approach Evertz hopes to advocate in meetings with other delegates at the Barcelona conference.

The acceleration of both U.S. and international initiatives to combat the epidemic reflects what Chow sees as a growing recognition among governments everywhere that HIV/AIDS is a problem that can't be ignored. "The virus infiltrates, permeates and devastates communities, from the family, grass root level, on to the national and regional level," Chow said. "Leaders have recognized this as a compelling threat that requires us to generate an equally compelling response, involving as many sectors of society as possible."

With this recognition and with new initiatives in place, Chow said the XIV International AIDS Conference convenes July 7 at a special moment in the more than 20-year struggle against a disease. "We are now at a point in history where both the science and the commitment to action have intersected and we are taking aggressive action," he said.

Released July 1, 2002