August 15, 2006

Abe Janzen, MCC Alberta Executive Director

It was another interesting day.

Session One had, as usual, four major presentations. All 4 are scientists, from Brazil, S. Africa, France, and Australia. Today’s theme was Prevention, though it keeps being very obvious that no one will talk about prevention without treatment being available as well. Gita Ramjee of S. Africa was brilliant, talking about 5 areas being researched that are part of the long term thinking in prevention. (And any time they talk about the ABCs as abstinence, being faithful, and condoms, people erupt with almost anger. In this audience, the ABCs by themselves are seen as powerfully disadvantaging women and girls, all over the world.) The 5 areas are:

• Microbicides. These are strongly supported by the Gates Foundation. A microbicide is a chemical gel applied to the vagina to prevent infection development. Trials are difficult, but this one is moving forward with a lot of support. It puts the power of infection prevention in the hands of women.
• Cervical Barriers. These are currently being promoted and are more or less safe.
• Male circumcision. This is new and difficult, but they are saying that when males are circumcised, the chance of HIV being transmitted is significantly lowered, for many reasons. Bill Clinton, in a speech over lunch time, waded into that awkward topic as well, and said that if the trials confirm what is now believed to be true, then we will have a very big job trying to sell this to men, and then to implement it. He said that without breaking a sweat, I think, but it shows how deadly serious these people are about finding as many ways as they can to reduce infection rates. And those who keep saying there is one, straight forward way to beat AIDS are just wrong.

Gita Ramjee then named two more major areas of research and finished by saying that she hopes the ABCs will soon become ABC and then D, E, F, G, H, I. She went so fast I did not get them down, but each of the other letters represents another area of prevention… I is for immunization. H is for Harm Reduction… referring to the fact that the world is increasingly addicted to drugs and that evidence shows that wherever countries address drug use by criminalizing it, HIV infections increase. That is a huge fact in the USA. She said that where countries treat injecting drug users as a reality and work with providing safe needle exchanges, for instance, the rate of infection with HIV drops. Pretty interesting stuff. Canada is one of the more progressive nations on this issue… the USA is on the opposite end.

Session Two: Indigenous Populations and Prevention Strategies. This was a smaller session that was less formal. I did not know this, but 20% of HIV infections in Canada are among Aboriginal people, and yet, Aboriginal people comprise only 6% of the population. Tomorrow at 4:15 pm, the Aboriginal Community is presenting a proposed charter of a 5-year plan at the Global Village. I hope to go and see what they are going to present. There is a very strong emphasis on research, but research done within their own communities, by their own people.

Session Three: Bill Clinton was introduced by Stephen Lewis and then spoke for about forty minutes. Clinton is almost revered here… as is Stephen Lewis. Clinton got a standing ovation before he even opened his mouth. His foundation has been pretty aggressive in the AIDS war, and he is clearly very committed to this, at a very personal level. He again talked about helping countries build systems that can sustain work with AIDS and can support their own professionals. His foundation makes it a policy to not hire any professionals away from a national government, though they will hire them from the private sector, as they have in Kenya. (Clinton says that 90% of those infected don’t know their status, which is why he opposed testing unless it is accompanied by money for drug treatment at the same time. Though he is not categorical about this… since he also says that if someone knows their status, they can at least stop spreading the disease if they chose to act responsibly.) At the end of his speech he said that for every one person attending the Conference, 1,500 are infected. And he said that surely we could all take some kind of responsibility for 1,500 people. Quite a challenge. He finished with telling us that the fight against AIDS needs money, prevention, lots of testing, basic human rights for women and children at a much higher level than what is now happening all over the world, research in such areas as microbicides and harm prevention, reaching out to the forgotten populations (I would include Aboriginal Canadians in that group… they are really under represented at this conference), infrastructure and systems building, and treatment to all who need it.

After supper, we went to a small theatre, also connected with the Conference, to see a monologue of 90 minutes by an African Canadian actor. It was a true story about a young man from Uganda, who joined the armies of Idi Amin as a teenager and eventually contacted AIDS. He was sent to Cuba for training but was sent back home immediately when the Cubans discovered he had the HIV. He eventually left for Canada and then the USA as an illegal immigrant, simply because Uganda had become impossible for him. He thought he would make fast money in America, but he did not. He then ended up in jail in Texas, falsely accused of taking 300 dollars from a hotel and sat there for 2 years, all the while worrying desperately about his young son in Uganda, whom he was hoping to support with money, by going, temporarily, to the USA to work. It all crashed. The world lets this happen.