XV International AIDS Conference, 2004

The XV International AIDS Conference was held in Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

, the capital city

Capital City

Capital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....

of Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, from July 11 to July 16, 2004. The main venue for the conference was the IMPACT Muang Thong Thani convention centre at Nonthaburi, north-east of downtown Bangkok. It was the first international AIDS conference to be held in Southeast Asia. International AIDS conferences have been held regularly since the first one in Atlanta in 1985.

At the opening ceremony on the evening of July 11, the main speakers were the Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra

Thaksin Shinawatra

Thaksin Shinawatra is a Thai businessman and politician, who was Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006, when he was overthrown in a military coup....

, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

. The opening was screened live on Thai national television.

Thaksin, whose government had been criticised by foreign observers for its harsh attitude to injecting drug users, surprised the conference by pledging to adopt a "harm minimization" approach to AIDS prevention among drug users, and to work co-operatively with non-government organizations, including the Thai Drug Users' Network. AIDS activists suggested that Thaksin had been promised greatly increased funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria if he adopted a more flexible attitude.

Annan, in a forceful speech, praised Thaksin and also the President of Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

, Yoweri Museveni

Yoweri Museveni

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a Ugandan politician and statesman. He has been President of Uganda since 26 January 1986.Museveni was involved in the war that deposed Idi Amin Dada, ending his rule in 1979, and in the rebellion that subsequently led to the demise of the Milton Obote regime in 1985...

, who was seated in the front row, for their leadership in developing strategies for fighting AIDS in developing countries. But he said that much more was needed, including a radical change in attitudes to women in many countries, since HIV infection is now increasing more rapidly among young women in developing countries that in any other population group. Annan said the empowerment of women, particularly in African and Asian countries, was the key to preventing the further spread of HIV infection.

The conference was attended by more than 20,000 delegates and a large contingent of local and international media. Many people with HIV/AIDS and delegates from developing countries were subsidized to attend the conference by governments, the United Nations

United Nations

, other international organizations and drug companies.

The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, however, significantly reduced its official presence at the conference as compared to previous conferences. The Department of Health and Human Services, which spent US$3.6 million to sent 236 people to the XIV International AIDS Conference

XIV International AIDS Conference, 2002

-Conference theme:The XIV INternational AIDS Conference was organized in Barcelona in July 2002, being Dr. Jordi Casabona and Dr...

in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

in 2002, spend US$500,000 and sent only 50. The move was seen as a response to events in Barcelona, when Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson

Tommy Thompson

Thomas George "Tommy" Thompson , a United States Republican politician, was the 42nd Governor of Wisconsin, after which he served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Thompson was a candidate for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, but dropped out early after a poor performance in polls...

was shouted down by protestors.

The co-chairs of the conference were Dr. Vallop Thaineua of Thailand and Joep Lange

Joep Lange

Joep MA Lange is a clinical researcher from The Netherlands, specialising in HIV therapy. He is currently Professor of Medicine at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam and Senior Scientific Advisor to the International Antiviral Therapy Evaluation Centre, Amsterdam...

of the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, president of the International AIDS Society

International AIDS Society

The International AIDS Society is an independent association of HIV professionals, with 14,000 members from 190 countries working at all levels of the global response to AIDS. IAS members include researchers from all disciplines, clinicians, public health and community practitioners on the...

, which was the formal host organization. The content of the conference was run by three program committees, the Community Program Committee, chaired by Senator Mechai Viravaidya

Mechai Viravaidya

Mechai Viravaidya is a former politician and activist in Thailand who has popularized condoms in that country.Since the 1970s, Mechai has been affectionately known as "Mr...

and Donald De Gagne, the Scientific Program Committee chaired by Professor Prasert Thongcharoen

Prasert Thongcharoen

Emeritus Professor Dr.Prasert Thongcharoen M.D. - is a Thai virologist, specialised in the fields of SARS, HIV, Bird Flu and many other diseases...

and Professor David Cooper, and the Leadership Program Committee chaired by Pakdee Pothisiri and Debrework Zewdie.

The Leadership Program section of the Conference was, however, thrown into doubt by security concerns. On July 7 the Thai government cancelled a meeting on HIV/AIDS for national leaders planned as part of the conference. The leaders of 13 countries and United Nations

United Nations

Secretary-General Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

were invited to the summit, which was to be hosted by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra

Thaksin Shinawatra

Thaksin Shinawatra is a Thai businessman and politician, who was Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006, when he was overthrown in a military coup....

, but only one national leader and Annan accepted.

As at previous international AIDS conferences, both local and international organizations staged protests about various aspects of HIV/AIDS policy at the Bangkok conference. Activists protested during the opening of the conference to call attention to what they said were failures by governments worldwide in fighting AIDS. Tight security prevented any disruption to the ceremony, although Prime Minister Thaksin was heckled during his speech by some sections of the audience.

The protests were co-ordinated by Thailand's AIDS Access Foundation. They called for increased worldwide access to antiretroviral treatments and greater financial support for treatment and prevention. Activists said that the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and other Western nations were backtracking on funding pledges made at the Barcelona conference.

Conference Organisation Overview

The XV International AIDS Conference is organised by the International AIDS Society

International AIDS Society

(IAS) and the Thai Ministry of Public Health as the local Host. The co-organisers of the conference are UNAIDS, three international community networks: ICW, ICASO, GNP+ and TNCA, a conglomerate of Thai AIDS NGOs.

Starting with Bangkok the IAS has established a central conference secretariat to organise the International AIDS Conferences as well as the HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment Conferences. The Local Host Secretariat is located in Bangkok to coordinate the work of local subcommittees. The Community Program Secretariat is located in Bangkok to handle capacity building, outreach and the community aspects of the program.

Representatives from the organisers and co-organisers form the basis of the Conference Organising Committee (COC). The Chairs of the conference represent the IAS and the Local Host. The COC in turn appoints two chairs each for the Scientific Program Committee (SPC), Community Program Committee (CPC) and Leadership Program Committee. The Committee Chairs serve on the COC. The SPC, CPC and LPC are then composed of leading representatives from a variety of fields who bring a diverse expertise to the conference planning process.

Jonathan Mann Memorial Lecture

On the third day of the conference Professor Dennis Altman

Dennis Altman

Dennis Patkin Altman is an Australian academic and pioneering gay rights activist.Altman was a Fullbright scholar at Cornell University in the 1960s when he met and began working with leading gay activists in the United States...

of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, a leading figure in the arena of international HIV/AIDS politics since the 1980s, delivered the Jonathan Mann Memorial Lecture. His theme was "structural interventions and vulnerable communities," particularly men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and sex workers. But he was not confined by this topic. He said of the late Professor Jonathan Mann

Jonathan Mann

Jonathan Mann was a former head of the World Health Organization's global AIDS program.Mann was medically qualified, receiving his B.A. from Harvard College, his M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis , and the degree of M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1980.Mann was a key...

, in whose honour the lecture is named: "One of the things I liked about Jonathan was his willingness to offend when doing so would confront people with the consequences of their actions."

Altman pointed out that the tendency to blame rich countries and pharmaceutical companies for the failure to stem the rising tide of AIDS ignored that the fact that "even poor countries can afford to support good prevention efforts, as Uganda

Uganda

and Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

remind us." More to blame, he said, was the failure of governments and religious leaderships to face up to the practices that facilitated the spread of HIV.

"The greatest tragedy of HIV/AIDS is that we know how to stop its spread, and yet in most parts of the world we are failing to do so," Altman said. He cited what he called the deliberate neglect by governments, the unwillingness to speak openly of HIV and its risks, and the "hypocrisy with which simple measures of prevention are forestalled in the name of culture, religion and tradition," as the major reasons for the continued spread of the epidemic.

Altman was particularly critical of the failure to remember the lessons learned by the gay male community during the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, particularly the need for affected communities to be at the centre of the response to AIDS. He called for an end to restrictions on the discussion and promotion of condoms, and an end to silence about homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, sex work

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

and drug use in many countries.

"As the epidemic grows we have many reasons to be angry, particularly at the hypocrisies of most governments and most religious leaders," Altman concluded. "We ignore the ways in which fundamentalists of all faiths perpetuate the gender and sexual inequalities that fuel the epidemic. But anger that is not supported by analysis, and that does not lead to action, is wasted and self-indulgent."

External links

International AIDS Society — Conference organizer
XV International AIDS Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, 2004
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Kaisernetwork.org Webcasts, Interviews and News from Conference

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