MEXICO CITY – Hello and greetings from Mexico! Over the next week, the topic of HIV/AIDS takes center stage as world leaders and HIV experts gather here for the XVII International Aids Conference http://www.aids2008.org/.
More than 25,000 people from across the globe are expected to attend the conference which opens on Sunday night and runs through Friday. Notables scheduled to attend include: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon; former U.S. President Bill Clinton; Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization; Anthony Fauci , Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Dr. Helene Gayle, President and CEO, CARE; Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California; and Festus Gontebabye Mogae, former President of Botswana.
Also attending will be various activists from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the U.S., including Phill Wilson, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, and Actor Sheryl Lee Ralph. Wilson’s group has a press conference scheduled for Monday afternoon to unveil a new report detailing the impact of HIV/AIDS on black America and the weak response to the epidemic from the Federal government. You can check out this link for a preview of their upcoming report:
www.blackaids.org.
While I’m here, I hope to use this space to highlight some of the key discussions and presentations concerning HIV/AIDS and particularly its impact on black Americans. More than 25 years into the epidemic, blacks continue to disproportionately suffer the brunt of HIV/AIDS in America.
In the black community, there’s lots of stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, which many experts view as a major obstacle in reducing the spread of the virus in our community. There’s also been a lot of silence, reluctance among many of our leaders to deal with the issue of HIV/AIDS.
But at this conference, HIV/AIDS is on the top of everyone’s agenda. So join me as I listen in on these very important conversations.
