TORONTO - Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation has contributed US$1.9
billion (euro1.5 billion) to fight AIDS, said Sunday that the search for HIV
prevention drugs that would empower women could be the "next big breakthrough"
in combating the disease.
Bill and Melinda Gates
address the opening ceremonies for the AIDS 2006 conference in
Toronto,Canada Sunday Aug. 13, 2006. [AP] |
The couple joined more than 24,000 scientists, activists, celebrities,
HIV-positive people and humanitarians from 132 countries on Sunday for a
conference on how to combat the disease that has killed 25 million people since
the first case was reported a quarter of a century ago.
Gates, who recently announced he would step down from his day-to-day duties
at Microsoft Corp. and devote more time to philanthropy, said the search for a
vaccine to prevent the virus that causes AIDS was now the foundation's top
priority.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given US$1.9 billion (euro1.5
billion) to support HIV/AIDS projects worldwide since 1995 and announced last
week a US$500 million (euro391 million) grant to the Global Fund to fight AIDS.
"We want to call on everyone here and around the world to help speed up what
we hope will be the next big breakthrough in the fight against AIDS _ the
discovery of a microbicide or an oral prevention drug that can block the
transmission of HIV," the couple told the opening ceremony of the 16th
International AIDS Conference.
"This could mark a turning point in the epidemic, and we have to make it an
urgent priority," they added.
Microbicides are gels or creams women can use to block infections and
disease. Sixteen microbicides are being clinically evaluated; five are in major
advanced studies.
The couple called for greater advocacy to break the "cruel stigma" of AIDS
for women in impoverished nations who typically have little say over their own
sex lives or health.
"We need tools that will allow women to protect themselves," said Gates.
"This is true whether the woman is a faithful married mother of small children,
or a sex worker trying to scrape out a living in a slum. No matter where she
lives, who she is, or what she does - a woman should never need her partner's
permission to save her own life."
Gates noted that abstinence and the use of condoms had helped to save many
lives, but noted that for many at the highest risk for infection, those
preventions had their limits.
"Abstinence is often not an option for poor women and girls who have no
choice but to marry at an early age," he said. "Being faithful will not protect
a woman whose partner is not faithful. And using condoms is not a decision that
a woman can make by herself; it depends on a man."
Melinda Gates said the couple visited an AIDS hospice in southern India last
December and noticed the wards were divided by gender; the male ward filled with
families and flowers.
"Across a courtyard, we saw a very different scene," she said. "The female
ward was a lonely, desolate place. There were no visitors, just women wasting
away from AIDS. There was no love, no warmth, no comfort. Just wives, daughters
and mothers, left alone to die."
