The IMPACT Muang Thong Thani convention centre, Bangkok, venue for the XV International AIDS Conference
The XV International AIDS Conference was held in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, 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, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. 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, Yoweri Museveni, 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, other international organizations and drug companies.
The United States, 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 send 236 people to the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona in 2002, spent 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 was shouted down by protestors.
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 Secretary-General Kofi Annan were invited to the summit, which was to be hosted by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 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 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 (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 of Melbourne, 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, 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 and Cambodia 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, sex work 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."
Thaksin Shinawatra, also known by Thai netizens as Tony Woodsome, is a Thai businessman, politician and visiting professor. He served in the Thai Police from 1973 to 1987, and was the Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006.
The United States President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a United States governmental initiative to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and help save the lives of those suffering from the disease. Launched by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003, as of May 2020, PEPFAR has provided about $90 billion in cumulative funding for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research since its inception, making it the largest global health program focused on a single disease in history until the COVID-19 pandemic. PEPFAR is implemented by a combination of U.S. government agencies in over 50 countries and overseen by the Global AIDS Coordinator at the U.S. Department of State. As of 2021, PEPFAR has saved over 20 million lives, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The International AIDS Society (IAS) is the world's largest association of HIV/AIDS professionals, with 11,600 members from over 170 countries as of July 2020, including clinicians, people living with HIV, service providers, policy makers and others. It aims to reduce the global impact of AIDS through collective advocacy. Founded in 1988, IAS headquarters are located in Geneva, and its president since July 2020 is Adeeba Kamarulzaman.
Jon Ungphakorn is a London-born Thai non-governmental organization (NGO) executive and former member of the Senate of Thailand (2000–2006).
The XVI International AIDS Conference was held in Toronto, Ontario, during the week of 13–18 August 2006. This was the third time that Canada has hosted the International AIDS Conference, after Montreal in 1989 and Vancouver in 1996. The main venue for the conference was the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) in downtown Toronto.
Taiwan's epidemic of HIV/AIDS began with the first case reported in December 1984. On 17 December 1990 the government promulgated the AIDS Prevention and Control Act. On 11 July 2007, the AIDS Prevention and Control Act was renamed the HIV Infection Control and Patient Rights Protection Act.
The People's Republic of China's first reported AIDS case was identified in 1985 in a dying tourist. In 1989, the first indigenous cases were reported as an outbreak in 146 infected heroin users in Yunnan province, near China's southwest border.
According to experts, the total number of individuals with HIV was estimated in 2016 to be between 0.85 and 1.5 million. Prevalence of HIV in adult people is between 0.8 and 1%. According to the UN, Russia has one of the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world. Approximately 95,000 Russians were diagnosed with HIV in 2015, and approximately 75,000 in the first nine months of 2016. Stigma surrounding the disease, and government indifference have contributed to the crisis. As of 2016 the HIV/AIDS epidemic, despite successes with intravenous drug users, was poised to move into the general population of sexually active young people.
The history of HIV/AIDS in Australia is distinctive, as Australian government bodies recognised and responded to the AIDS pandemic relatively swiftly, with the implementation of effective disease prevention and public health programs, such as needle and syringe programs (NSPs). As a result, despite significant numbers of at-risk group members contracting the virus in the early period following its discovery, the country achieved and has maintained a low rate of HIV infection in comparison to the rest of the world.
NMAC, formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council, works for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America. The nonprofit organization, located in Washington, D.C., was founded in 1987. NMAC represents over 3,000 community- and faith-based organizations across the US. The agency advances its mission by providing minority and minority-serving faith- and community-based organizations with capacity building assistance programs, online and classroom-based trainings, printed and electronic resources, grassroots organization and political advocacy. These activities improve the delivery of HIV/AIDS services, helping to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS in underserved and marginalized communities.
Since the first HIV/AIDS case in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) was identified in 1990, the number of infections has continued to grow. In 2005, UNAIDS estimated that 3,700 people in Lao PDR were living with HIV.
With less than 0.1 percent of the population estimated to be HIV-positive, Bangladesh is a low HIV-prevalence country.
UNAIDS has said that HIV/AIDS in Indonesia is one of Asia's fastest growing epidemics. In 2010, it is expected that 5 million Indonesians will have HIV/AIDS. In 2007, Indonesia was ranked 99th in the world by prevalence rate, but because of low understanding of the symptoms of the disease and high social stigma attached to it, only 5-10% of HIV/AIDS sufferers actually get diagnosed and treated. According to the a census conducted in 2019, it is counted that 640,443 people in the country are living with HIV. The adult prevalence for HIV/ AIDS in the country is 0.4%. Indonesia is the country is Southeast Asia to have the most number of recorded people living with HIV while Thailand has the highest adult prevalence.
Since HIV/AIDS was first reported in Thailand in 1984, 1,115,415 adults had been infected as of 2008, with 585,830 having died since 1984. 532,522 Thais were living with HIV/AIDS in 2008. In 2009 the adult prevalence of HIV was 1.3%. As of 2016, Thailand had the highest prevalence of HIV in Southeast Asia at 1.1 percent, the 40th highest prevalence of 109 nations.
With 1.28 percent of the adult population estimated by UNAIDS to be HIV-positive in 2006, Papua New Guinea has one of the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemics in the Asia-Pacific subregion. Although this new prevalence rate is significantly lower than the 2005 UNAIDS estimate of 1.8 percent, it is considered to reflect improvements in surveillance rather than a shrinking epidemic. Papua New Guinea accounts for 70 percent of the subregion's HIV cases and is the fourth country to be classified as having a generalized HIV epidemic.
Thaksin Shinawatra was the 23rd prime minister of Thailand.
Yingluck Shinawatra, nicknamed Pou, is a Thai businesswoman, politician and a member of the Pheu Thai Party who became the Prime Minister of Thailand following the 2011 election. Yingluck was Thailand's first female prime minister and its youngest in over 60 years. She was removed from office on 7 May 2014 by a Constitutional Court decision.
Julio S. G. Montaner, is an Argentine-Canadian physician, professor and researcher. He is the director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the chair in AIDS Research and head of the Division of AIDS in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and the past-president of the International AIDS Society. He is also the director of the John Ruedy Immunodeficiency Clinic, and the Physician Program Director for HIV/AIDS PHC. He is known for his work on HAART, a role in the discovery of triple therapy as an effective treatment for HIV in the late 1990s, and a role in advocating the "Treatment as Prevention" Strategy in the mid-2000s, led by Myron Cohen of the HPTN 052 trial.
Martin T. Schechter is a Canadian epidemiologist recognized for contributions to HIV research, prevention and treatments and to addiction research. He is a professor and the former founding director of the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Schechter received his Order of British Columbia in 1994 alongside BC's first Nobel Prize laureate Michael Smith. He now serves as Chief Scientific Officer of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.
New York City was affected by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s more than any other U.S. city. The AIDS epidemic has been and continues to be highly localized due to a number of complex socio-cultural factors that affect the interaction of the populous communities that inhabit New York.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
