achievable and cost-effective. Now we have to mobilise the political will to provide it. Gus Cairns reports from Barcelona
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It's non-negotiable'
One speech always defines the mood of a World Aids Conference from the
start. Two years ago at Durban, HIV positive Judge Edwin Cameron's passionate
denunciation of health inequality galvanised the world drug access movement.
This time round the speech was by an HIV negative man, UNAIDS Director
Peter Piot. The Barcelona Conference, he said, would signal "a new
era...Aids as a global political issue."
Piot set the tone for a conference in which hope for genuine progress
towards global Aids treatment was moderated by concerns about the magnitude
of the task ahead, and fears that good intentions would not compensate
for political inertia and the stigma of Aids.
The argument for universal Aids treatment had been won, Piot said. The
world has to find the $10 billion needed if the Global Fund for Aids,
TB and Malaria
(GFATM) is to make a realistic dent in the epidemic. He continued: "We must...attack stigma. That's non-negotiable. We must...deliver a vaccine. That's non-negotiable. And, to rising cheers: "We must
deliver both prevention and treatment. That's non-negotiable."
