IAS Conference gets underway in Washington, D.C.

One of the most powerful and poignant symbols of the 30-year AIDS epidemic, particularly in the US, is the AIDS quilt—now 44,000 panels strong—yet until this weekend Michel Sidibe, the dynamic director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) had never had the opportunity to view it.

Sidibe was so moved by the personal messages of love and loss—some on display at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and others at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where the International AIDS Conference is being held from July 22-27—that he felt compelled to wear a black and white T-shirt from the NAMES Project Foundation, the curator of the AIDS quilt, for a mid-afternoon press conference rather than his usual coat, tie, and jacket. “It was just amazing,” he said of the quilt.

Both the quilt and the biannual conference are celebrating a homecoming of sorts. The last time the entire quilt was on display was in 1996 on the National Mall. And it’s been 25 years since the biannual conference—a lively, passionate meeting that typically attracts more AIDS advocates and policy makers than scientists—has been held in the US Capitol. Its return to US soil after 22 years—it was last held in the US in 1990 in San Francisco—was made possible after President Obama announced in December 2009 that he was lifting a controversial travel ban that placed national travel and immigration restrictions on people with HIV. 

During opening ceremonies before a standing-room only crowd, Diane Havlir, chief of the HIV/AIDS Division at the University of California, San Francisco, and a co-chairman of the IAS conference, recalled her days as a young doctor at San Francisco General Hospital during the 1980s, when AIDS was viewed as an “exotic infection crusted with discrimination and fear.” 

The tools available to fight HIV/AIDS have grown exponentially since then—notably the power of antiretroviral therapy to both treat and prevent HIV, and the upbeat developments in both vaccine and cure research—and so 25 years after the IAS conference was held in DC, Havlir and others are sounding a different note. “We have come such a long way but we must take steps today to end the epidemic,” she said, echoing the theme of the conference, “Turning the Tide Together.” 

“I want you to close your eyes,” said Sidibe, during his opening address to the 20,000 attendees. “We can end AIDS. Those of us in the room hear this all the time. Wear a condom, end AIDS. Give money, end AIDS. This time—it is different. This time it is different. This time, together, we will end AIDS.” 

While there are 34 million people living with AIDS, Sidibe noted that for the first time, there are more people in treatment—eight million—than who need treatment in developing countries. He said worldwide, new infections have declined 20% and that AIDS-related deaths have fallen from 1.8 million in 2005 to 1.2 million today. “A powerful metaphor of our success is the story of the casket maker in Lesotho complaining about business, because people with HIV are not dying of AIDS anymore.” 

But Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said some have wondered whether the calls for an AIDS-free generation implies we are close to eradicating the epidemic—when in fact we are not—breeding complacency on the part of the public and among funders.