Health
World AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada
Adeeba Kamarulzaman, President of the International AIDS Society, speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2022 AIDS Conference. Photo
© Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press/AP/DPA
The fight against HIV and AIDS has stalled around the world. The lives of millions of people are at risk. Strategies and measures are now being discussed at the World AIDS Conference.
Hundreds of experts, interested parties and affected people met in Montreal, Canada, on Friday at the World AIDS Conference to discuss strategies in the fight against HIV. Among the participants, for example, is US immunologist Anthony Fauci.
The United Nations Program to Fight AIDS (UNAIDS) had already drawn attention in a report to the fact that the fight against HIV and AIDS had come to a halt worldwide. In the last two years – given the coronavirus pandemic and other crises – there was far less money available to fight HIV and AIDS than ever before. In some areas where the number of new infections had previously fallen, they are now rising again; The lives of millions of people are at risk.
At the World AIDS Conference, scientists now want to take countermeasures. “The situation today is not looking good. We are losing the ground we have gained over the past 20 years in the fight against HIV,” said Bern-Thomas Nyangwa, medical director of the aid organization Doctors Without Borders. “If we are not to lose the fight against HIV, we urgently need to focus our efforts on those most at risk and close the funding gap immediately.”
After the 2020 conference was moved to the Internet due to the coronavirus pandemic, this time the meeting will be at least partially rescheduled to August 2 in Montreal, Canada, with speeches, discussions and question-and-answer sessions. This conference, first held in 1985, is considered the world’s largest scientific meeting on the subject of AIDS.
