DURBAN, South Africa (AFP) - Scientists from around the world are comparing notes on AIDS, spurred by an emotive appeal from an 11-year-old boy who was infected at birth, in a desperate effort to unravel the complex disease.
They are meeting in Durban, on South Africa's Indian Ocean coast, the 13th such meeting so far, and the first in a developing continent, to discuss solutions to a pandemic that has killed 18.8 million people worldwide, more than two-thirds of them in Africa.
"You can't get AIDS by kissing, hugging or holding hands. We are normal human beings. We can walk, we can talk, we are all the same," said young Nkosi Johnson, facing an audience of thousands at the opening ceremony of the International AIDS Conference in the city's cricket stadium.
The delegates cheered him, many with tears in their eyes. "When I have an open wound, that's the only time people need to be afraid of me," the boy said, to great applause, as he told the tale of the death of his AIDS-inflicted mother, who was "in heaven, watching over me."
He called on South African President Thabo Mbeki, who had just opened the conference, to provide the anti-retroviral drug AZT to pregnant women. Mbeki has banned that, partly on the grounds of cost, but also because he says he believes the drug may have harmful side effects.
In South Africa, one in five adults is infected with HIV or full-blown AIDS - in nearby countries the rate is one in four, even one in three - but Mbeki pointed out that the 11,000 delegates in this modern city would not have time to visit the ravaged countryside.
"You will not see the South African and African world ... in which AIDS thrives - a partner with poverty, with suffering, with social disadvantage, and with inequity," he said, arguing that poverty was the main cause of Africa's health problems, and that "it seemed to me that we could not blame everything on a single virus."
His unorthodox views, and an invitation to "dissident" scientists to sit on an advisory panel, brought a "Durban declaration" by 5,000 scientists and doctors last week who declared that good science rather than "myth" was the answer to AIDS. The theme of the conference - in a region still riven with taboos - is "Break the Silence."
On Sunday, health experts unveiled plans for swift, global release of a future vaccine for the AIDS virus that would break the mould of pharmaceutical pricing to help poorer countries. The blueprint drawn up by the U.S.-based foundation International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) seeks to avoid a repeat of the delayed, skewed distribution of other vaccines that have left millions exposed to measles, hepatitis, yellow fever and other avoidable diseases.
"The once-empty vaccine pipeline is beginning to move, with a number of promising approaches in development," said IAVI's president, Seth Berkley. "We are increasingly optimistic that (an HIV) vaccine will be ready in five to 10 years. If we are to reverse the world's historic failure to get important vaccines to all who need them, we must begin work immediately"
