[Press Kit, International Conference on AIDS (13th : 2000 : Durban, South Africa), compiled by the International AIDS Society]

IAS
INTERNATIONAL
SOCIETY
BACKGROUND NOTE
An open letter from the International AIDS Society (IAS) to
all people involved worldwide in the fight against HIV/AIDS
On behalf of over 10,000 IAS members from more than 132 countries and as custodian
of the series of biennial International AIDS Conferences, we reaffirm that we stand
firmly behind the XIII International AIDS Conference to be held in Durban, South
Africa on July 9-14, 2000.
This is the first International AIDS Conference to be held in a developing country and in
the very epicentre of the pandemic. The IAS selected Durban as a venue intentionally to
raise the world's awareness of the catastrophic development of HIV/AIDS in subSaharan Africa and particularly in Southern Africa. The African continent, where the
incidence of HIV/AIDS keeps increasing, is facing an unprecedented demographic
upheaval caused by the disease. (Recent estimates project that several sub-Saharan
nations, including South Africa, will lose one quarter of their population to AIDS by
2010 and that an estimated 4.2 million South Africans - 10 percent of the population -
are infected with HIV, with 1,700 people newly infected every day).
Any government has the right to gather data and information on HIV/AIDS directly
from whatever source may be considered useful in helping them to understand the
problem. However, since the Durban Conference will deal with scientific and public
health policies from an international perspective, its aims must not be impeded by
political considerations.
The ethical imperative is the design and implementation of interventions tailored to each
country's needs, in order to address the drama represented by 23.3 million people living
with HIV/AIDS in Africa, 2.6 million deaths due to AIDS in 1999, and 16,000 new
infections every day. This requires the immediate adoption of appropriate strategies
already documented to be effective in Africa to stop the epidemic of HIV - the deadly
virus that causes AIDS.
One of the stated purposes of the IAS is to be a "Voice of Reason" in controversies: our
mission is to unite all parties in order to address the problems pertaining to the
HIV/AIDS situation worldwide. The Conference serves as the multidisciplinary forum at
which issues can be discussed by all those affected by the HIV epidemic: scientists,
international agencies, NGOs, governments, and people living with HIV/AIDS.
When we chose Durban, we anticipated that there might be a number of problems
related to the site, especially among Conference delegates not accustomed to Africa -
even though Durban is a modern city similar to cities in Western countries. The IAS

wishes to assure everyone that the Conference Organisers have established an action plan
to take care of any reasonable security concern. In general, travel to Durban does not