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

IAS
/ INTERNATIONAL
SOCIETY
1989 The V International Conference on AIDS was held in Montreal. The voice of
activism reached the delegates: activists occupied the podium and cried their
claims. The cases of AIDS peaked to 160,000 worldwide. In the USA, the
Burroughs Wellcome is obliged to lower the price of AZT because of the activists
protests. John Holmes, the most famous and paid pornstar in the world, died due
to AIDS.
1990 Ronald Regan admitted not to have properly considered the AIDS epidemic.
That was not enough for thousands of activists who, during the VI International
Conference on AIDS held in San Francisco, protested against the discriminating
rules issued by the George Bush's Government and to raise awareness on the
infection. There were 254,000 reported cases of AIDS in the world, more than
12,000 just in Uganda.
1991 ddl, a new drug against HIV, is approved. Like AZT, it inhibits a virus enzyme
called reverse transcriptase. Magic Johnson declared to be seropositive. The VII
International Conference on AIDS was held in Florence: 9,053 AIDS cases are
reported in Italy, 47,594 in Europe and 380,000 worldwide. There were about 10
million HIV positive people in the world.
1992 The FDA set up a specific accelerated process of approval for antiretroviral
drugs, aimed to speed up the availability of new molecules for the fight against
AIDS. ddC, another inhibitor of the reverse transcriptase, is approved. The first
clinical trial on combination therapy started to enroll patients. Because of the
restrictive rules regarding admittance of people living with HIV/AIDS in the
USA, the VIII International Conference on AIDS was shifted from Boston to
Amsterdam. There were more than 213,000 cases of AIDS in USA, 71,568 in
Europe and more than 30,000 in Uganda.
1993 The CDC introduced a new classification of the AIDS cases including additional
opportunistic infections defining AIDS. The new classification highlighted the
importance of the CD4+ cell count for the definition of AIDS. The results of the
Concorde trial, showed that the early monotherapy with AZT did not offer
advantages in terms of disease progression and survival. A scandal regarding
infected blood burst out in France: four officers of the blood bank are jailed.
Tennis player Artur Ashe and the dancer Rudolf Nureyev died due to AIDS. The
IX International Conference was held in Berlin in a depressed atmosphere. More

than 600,000 AIDS cases are reported world wide and for the first time is
reported a very quick diffusion of the infection in South East Asia.