XX International AIDS Conference, 2014

Last updated

The XX International AIDS Conference was held in Melbourne, Australia from 20 to 25 July 2014 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. It was organized by the International AIDS Society). Over 14,000 scientists, campaigners and politicians were expected to attend. [1]

Contents

Conference proceedings

From July 20 to 25, 2014, Melbourne, Australia hosted the 20th International AIDS Conference. Speakers included Michael Kirby, Richard Branson and Bill Clinton. Clinton's focus was HIV treatment and he called for a greater levels of treatment provision worldwide; [2] [3] in an interview during the conference, Kirby focused on legal issues and their relationship to medication costs and vulnerable groups—Kirby concluded by calling for an international inquiry:

And what is needed, as the Global Commission on HIV and the Law pointed out, is a new inquiry at international level – inaugurated by the secretary-general of the United Nations – to investigate a reconciliation between the right to health and the right of authors to proper protection for their inventions. At the moment, all the eggs are in the basket of the authors, and it's not really a proportionate balance. And that's why the Global Commission suggested that there should be a high level of investigation. [3]

Branson, Global Drug Commissioner at the time of the conference, stressed the importance of decriminalizing illicit injecting drug use to the prevention of HIV and, speaking in global terms, stated that "we're using too much money and far too many precious resources on incarceration". [4] The Open Society Foundation launched the "To Protect and Serve How Police, Sex Workers, and People Who Use Drugs Are Joining Forces to Improve Health and Human Rights" report at the conference. [5]

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

The International AIDS Society confirmed that six delegates were killed in the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, though initial reports from other outlets reported numbers of up to 100 delegates. The six delegates, including former society president Joep Lange, were acknowledged during the conference at the AIDS 2014 Candlelight Vigil event. [4] [6] [7] News of the crash broke as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was preparing to air a live performance of the AIDS Memoir Quartet , a memorial work by former ACT UP activist Lyle Chan. Presenter Julian Day and Lyle Chan dedicated the performance to the crash victims and their families. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XV International AIDS Conference, 2004</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief</span> United States governmental initiative

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 United States Department of State. As of 2023, PEPFAR has saved over 25 million lives, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International AIDS Society</span>

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 August 2022 is Sharon Lewin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joep Lange</span> Dutch clinical researcher (1954–2014)

Joseph Marie Albert "Joep" Lange was a Dutch clinical researcher specialising in HIV therapy. He served as the president of the International AIDS Society from 2002 to 2004. He was a passenger on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down on 17 July 2014 over Ukraine.

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, Australia achieved and has maintained a low rate of HIV infection in comparison to the rest of the world.

The Catholic Church is a major provider of medical care to HIV/AIDS patients. Much of its work takes place in developing countries, although it has also had a presence in the global north. Its opposition to condoms, despite their effectiveness in preventing the spread of HIV, has invited criticism from public health officials and anti-AIDS activists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Security Council Resolution 1308</span> United Nations resolution adopted in 2000

United Nations Security Council resolution 1308, adopted unanimously on 17 July 2000, was the first resolution to address the impact of HIV/AIDS worldwide. The Security Council asked countries to consider voluntary HIV/AIDS testing and counselling for troops deployed in peacekeeping operations.

The Vienna Declaration (2010) was a call for evidence-based drug policies prompted by the failure of traditional drug policies in the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The cost of HIV treatment is a complicated issue with an extremely wide range of costs due to varying factors such as the type of antiretroviral therapy and the country in which the treatment is administered. The first line therapy of HIV, or the initial antiretroviral drug regimen for an HIV-infected patient, is generally cheaper than subsequent second-line or third-line therapies. There is also a great variability of drug prices among low, middle, and high income countries. In general, low-income countries have the lowest cost of antiretroviral therapy, while middle- and high-income tend to have considerably higher costs. Certain prices of HIV drugs may be high and difficult to afford due to patent barriers on antiretroviral drugs and slow regulatory approval for drugs, which may lead to indirect consequences such as greater HIV drug resistance and an increased number of opportunistic infections. Government and activist movements have taken efforts to limit the price of HIV drugs.

<i>How to Survive a Plague</i> 2012 American documentary film by David France

How to Survive a Plague is a 2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France, a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. France's first film, it was dedicated to his partner Doug Gould who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1992. The documentary was produced using more than 700 hours of archived footage which included news coverage, interviews as well as film of demonstrations, meetings and conferences taken by ACT UP members themselves. France says they knew what they were doing was historic, and that many of them would die. The film opened in selected theatres across the United States on September 21, 2012, also includes footage of a demonstration during mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989.

Cheryl Overs founder and former first director of the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria, the Scarlet Alliance in Australia and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1957 and educated at University High School and La Trobe University. Overs set up organisations, oversaw events and authored texts that established the place of sex workers rights within the global response to HIV/AIDS.

The shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on 17 July 2014 provoked reactions from many countries and organisations.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malaysia Airlines Flight 17</span> Airliner shot down by Russian-controlled forces in 2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-controlled forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 kilometres from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage from the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km from the border. The shoot-down occurred during the war in Donbas over territory controlled by Russian separatist forces.

Dr. Debrework Zewdie, former director of the World Bank Global AIDS Program and Deputy Executive Director and COO of the Global Fund, is an Ethiopian national who has led strategy, policy implementation, and management of development programs at country, regional, and global levels for international bodies such as the World Bank and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. As an immunologist, she conceptualized and managed the groundbreaking US$1 billion Multi-country HIV/AIDS Program that changed the AIDS funding landscape and pioneered the large-scale multi-sectorial response with direct financing to civil society and the private sector. Dr. Zewdie led the articulation of the World Bank's first global strategy on HIV/AIDS and the Global HIV/AIDS Program of Action. As a founding UNAIDS Global Coordinator, she has been instrumental in making the unique cooperative structure of the UNAIDS family a working reality, fostering strong inter-agency partnerships. She is an advocate for women's health and was a founding vice president and member of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA). She established institutional rigor at the Global Fund and led its wide-ranging internal reform which culminated in the ongoing corporate transformation program. Dr. Zewdie has a Ph.D. in clinical immunology from the University of London, a postdoctoral fellowship at SYVA Company, and was a Senior MacArthur Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Dr. Zewdie was a Richard L. and Ronay A. Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2015. During her Fellowship at the Harvard Chan School, she also participated as a speaker on Voices in Leadership, an original webcast series, in a discussion titled, "Leadership in Getting AIDS on the World Bank Agenda", moderated by Dr. Barry Bloom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volodymyr Zhovtyak</span>

Volodymyr Zhovtyak is a Ukrainian social activist and a human rights defender. He is one of the leaders of the movement of people living with HIV/AIDS in Ukraine, and in the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He is one of the founders of the national and international non-governmental organizations of PLWH, which collaborates with institutions of the United Nations, the European Union and the USA, as well as with the Cabinet of Ministers and the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.

David Albert Cooper was an Australian HIV/AIDS researcher, immunologist, professor at the University of New South Wales, and the director of the Kirby Institute. He and Professor Ron Penny diagnosed the first case of HIV in Australia.

The Acacia Quartet is a string quartet based in Australia. It was founded in 2010 by violinists Lisa Stewart and Myee Clohessy, violist Stefan Duwe, and cellist Anna Martin-Scrase. Stewart and Clohessy both play A. E Smith violins. The quartet were artists-in-residence at the radio station Fine Music 102.5 from 2014 to 2016. They made their international debut performing the 2-hour long AIDS Memoir Quartet of Lyle Chan in Vancouver, Canada and then travelled to Berlin to perform and record several string quartets by the Nazi-banned late German composer Günter Raphael. Their discography demonstrates their longstanding collaborations with Australian composers Lyle Chan, Elena Kats-Chernin. and Moya Henderson. Jane Sheldon recorded with the quartet.

Lyle Chan is an Australian composer, known for his unique approach of writing cumulative works with only one work per genre. His AIDS Memoir Quartet chronicles his years years as an HIV/AIDS activist at the height of the epidemic in Australia. John Cage was a major influence on his work, and he is regarded as an authority on the musician.

String Quartet: An AIDS Activist's Memoir in Music, commonly abbreviated to AIDS Memoir Quartet, is a musical composition by composer Lyle Chan which premiered in 2014. The work has been exclusively performed by the Acacia Quartet.

References

  1. ↑ Gallagher, James (18 July 2014). "MH17 crash: 'Total shock' at Aids researcher deaths". BBC News. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
  2. ↑ Melissa Davey (23 July 2014). "Aids-free generation within reach if we boost HIV treatment, says Bill Clinton". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  3. 1 2 Michael Kirby (23 July 2014). "'The law can be an awful nuisance in the area of HIV/AIDS': Michael Kirby". The Conversation. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  4. 1 2 "Decriminalisation of drug use – key to ending HIV". Health24. 22 July 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  5. ↑ "To Protect and Serve". Open Society Foundations. July 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  6. ↑ Australian Associated Press (19 July 2014). "MH17: AIDS conference organisers name six delegates killed in crash". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  7. ↑ Hogan, Caelainn; Eunjung Cha, Ariana (2014-07-18). "Top AIDS researcher and others in field perished on MH17". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
  8. ↑ "Review: An AIDS Activist's Memoir (Acacia Quartet)". www.limelightmagazine.com.au. Retrieved 2017-03-16.


Regional Organizations Map.png

This article about an international organization is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

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.