In an evening coloured by emotional tributes to the victims of the Flight MH17 disaster, the World AIDS Conference 2014 was formally opened in Melbourne this evening with human rights, condoms and the needs of gay and bisexual men world-wide coming to the fore. The head of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibe spoke strongly against the stigmatisation of glbti people around the world, particularly those gay and bisexual men and transsexuals most at risk of contracting HIV. Michael Kirby His words were echoed by gay former Justice of the Australian High Court Michael Kirby who spoke on the theme of 'no one left behind' in the fight against the spread of HIV. In a moving speech conference co-chair Francoise Barre-Sinoussi paid tribute to the delegates who died in the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft en route to the conference. Accompanied by representatives of the organisations they had belonged to, who stood on stage supporting each other by holding hands and shoulders, she said she knew several very closely. Another highly charged moment was when a representative of the Netherlands government referred gently to "a few empty seats" at the conference. The tragedy, which has seen at least six HIV experts killed, has become integral to the conference and acknowledgement of the losses have considerably slowed today's proceedings. "The horror of MH17 is definitely present, it's mentioned at the beginning of all sessions and opening ceremonies," observed NZ AIDS Foundation Executive Director Shaun Robinson who is heading a twelve-strong NZAF team at the conference. "However, it's not overpowering the purpose and energy of the conference, it's more like a shadow." As expected, numbers attending the biannual conference are lower than for past years, an effect of the added expense of travelling to southern Australia compared to, say, Washington which attracted 28,000 delegates compared to Melbourne's 12,000. A poignant moment of silence Robinson says he is pleased that at the 'pre-conference' conference focusing on HIV amongst men who have sex with men there was "much acknowledgement that infection rates amongst msm are rising around the world" and that this needs to be addressed. "The release of World Health Organisation guidelines of the most at risk populations acknowledges the world effort has dropped the ball for msm and transgender people," says Robinson, for whom the problem has been an on-going concern. Sidibe also acknowledged that the situation for men who have sex with men has got worse in recent years, and highlighted that the human rights situation for many msm is going backwards. He said if this continues it will not be possible to achieve UNAIDS' stated goal of ending AIDS by 2030. And in a development which Robinson describes as showing "more realism this year" there has been increased acknowledgement that the evolving sciences of 'treatment as prevention' and PreP - dosing at risk people with anti-HIV drugs prior to possible exposure to the virus - are not silver bullets which will strike at the core of the HIV epidemic around the world. "At this conference condoms have made a comeback," says Robinson, who has attended an early session on the New South Wales prevention strategy which has until now caused concern in New Zealand by seeming to de-emphasise the first-line defence of condom use in favour of drug treatments to stop the spread of HIV amongst gay and bisexual men. "They still stressed testing and treatment and PreP but now condoms as prevention seems to have come back much more to the front and centre of their prevention effort," he reports. Attending pre-conference sessions focusing on the situation of people living with HIV, most of whom in New Zealand are gay and bisexual men, Body Positive's Bruce Kilmister says he was particularly impressed an address by American Sean Strube of the Sero Project. "He spoke of the rights of all people living with HIV to be included at every level of HIV work; that is, they must no longer be just appointed to boards but must be elected by other people living with the virus." Strube also spoke of the stigma gay and bi men and others with HIV face across the world and of the dangers of criminalising HIV and homosexuality, as is increasingly happening in parts of Africa and eastern Europe. In a wry aside, Kilmister says he sat at this evening's opening session adjacent to three journalists from the China Daily News who were astounded that an openly gay person such as Michael Kirby could have been a high court judge. It was clear, he says, that that could never happen in China.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Sunday, 20th July 2014 - 11:39pm