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Closing Session of the Fifth IAS conference on HIV Pathogenesis

The Remind the Gap Campaign has received the support of more than 500 participating scientists at the conference

including Nobel Prize winner Francoise barre-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of the HIV virus.

Saturday 25 July 2009

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This campaign, already supported by more than 100 organizations in many countries around the world, calls on the leaders of the rich countries to immediately increase their contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. It is estimated that the fund will require an additional 5 billion US dollars in order to meet its 2010 goals.

This is a matter of life and death. Many millions of people now in the program risk death if their treatment is interrupted. Such interruptions will be inevitable if adequate funding is not found.

The Board of the International Fund will be meeting in Addis Ababa four months from now, from the 9 to the 11 of November. If funds are not adequate the Board will have no choice except to cut back on the delivery of treatment and care, and support for health care personnel in many countries. While the G8 countries committed themselves to universal access to treatment at their 2007 and 2008 summits, today less than 30% of people livinging with HIV/AIDS have access to antiretovirals. We are already seeing access to care programs reduced, and seropositives around the world deprived of essential medicines.

Without an urgent response to meet this funding gap, within four months, millions of people in the south will face disasterous consequences, and as Francoise Barre-Sinoussi said at the opening of the conference, " governments and their leaders will be responsible for this disaster if they don’t step up their contributions. HIV is not in recession!" [1].


[1http://www.ias2009.org/pag/webcasts/?sessionid=2384 – « HIV is not in recession » is a campaign of TAC. Nobel Prize winner Françoise Barré Sinoussi wore TAC’s tee-shirt.