IAC Day 1—I couldn’t have said it better myself
Dr. Paul Zeitz
Executive Director, Global AIDS Alliance
As I sat down to write about my experiences on the first day of this year's International AIDS Conference, I realized I couldn't describe it all better than Tapiwanashe Kujinga, one of GAA's CEPA partners, did in the below email:
Dear all
So the International AIDS Conference roared into life today in Vienna.
The opening ceremony held last evening was filled with drama as hundreds of treatment activists demonstrated and disrupted the opening ceremony. The protests were centered around the funding gap and criminilisation of sex work. Apparently, someone witheld the mike, so there was no speech by the activists. Activists were scathing against Obama, accusing him of lying about increasing funding for HIV. "Obama lies, people die." For a man who was swept into the White House on a massive groundswell of popular support, this must rank as his ultimate anticlimax.
In his opening speech, Julio Montaner, the AIDS 2010 Chair, decried the lack of funding for AIDS. "Leaders can find money to bail out their corporate friends", he said, "yet when it comes to global health, their pockets are empty." The last G8 meeting in Canada was a disappointment, he added, and hoped that the next one, to happen in France, will be more concrete in terms of funding pledges. He also stressed that the vertical approach to treatment and prevention should be discarded. "It is no longer treatment and prevention, but treatment as prevention." The May Lancet report has conclusively proved that this is effective.
In the first plenary today, former US President Bill Clinton took a more placatory approach. The cutbacks in funding, he said, were not dictated by a reversal of Obama's policies, but by the global economic meltdown that occurred just before he took office. He felt that Obama never lied, but that the money pledged was reduced in line with the austerity measures taken after the economic crunch.
As is the case with such conferences, today is filled with numerous parallel sessions, poster presentations, side meetings and what not.
We are still waiting to see whether any really good news will come out of this whole kaleidoscope.
Regards
Tapiwa