back into its old days of crime and grime, and badly needs a boost similar
to the one the Olympics gave it 10 years ago. Never forget the importance
of tourism to the Spanish economy. It's the main incentive for the public
sector to fund the conference. But it's not the main incentive to be there.
Physical presence with others is imperative to continue feeling like a
human being and to motivate people. This is the most important aspect
of a conference of this type.
This capitalist world struggles continually with the balance between economics
and social needs, between money and people. An international Aids conference
is the sort of place where those differences become most pointed, where
they shout at you rather than rumble away in the background.
In Spain, like in most countries in western Europe, access to treatment
and care for people living with HIV/Aids is free. Access to health care
is universal and our health systems pay the drug companies' invoices for
their antiretroviral drugs. Seated in their elegant offices, dealing with
doctors as their principal clients, they can easily relegate the patient
to the category of a sum on a bill.
But the increasing number of people from the HIV community who are assisting
these events gives thousands of faces to the epidemic. For a few days,
for those with economic or political power, the epidemic will stop being
just a graph and will become personalised with names, faces, voices. This
impact will inevitably lead to changes. Durban, with the slogan "Break
the Silence", signified an important advance in this respect. Barcelona,
with almost 1,400 HIV community scholarship
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