MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Fifty-eight journalists from 40 countries are gathered here for the Journalist to Journalist (J2J) global media training programme on HIV/AIDS, in preparation for the five-day 2008 XVII International AIDS Conference which starts August 3.

A project of the National Press Foundation (NPF), the J2J programme has since 2002 trained hundreds of journalists in providing coverage for these major AIDS conference.

Bob Meyers, president of the NPF, said the four-day training was expected to equip journalists in covering the science, technology, behavioural and prevention issues surrounding HIV/AIDS.

"The conference will be very informative and I am expecting journalists to get a lot from it," he said.

At the same time, Myers told the Observer that the NPF would be introducing a new component in the J2J training programme, in which participants at this year's training will be sought to prepare a curriculum for newsrooms worldwide.

"Journalists can modify it to work with their newsroom or country so their colleagues who are not here can benefit from this knowledge," he said.

The J2J programme is funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its other funders include Merck Company Foundation, Abbott, Tibotec, Pan American Health Organisation, and Panos Caribbean, among others.

Meanwhile, the International AIDS Conference, the largest gathering of its kind in the world, is expected to pull 25,000 delegates from 188 countries during the five-day staging of the event at the Centro Banamex in Mexico City.

Under this year's theme - "Universal Action Now" - the conference is expected to address a number of new scientific findings.

These include:
. The fact that new antibodies do not help control Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) in monkey, which raises further questions on the ongoing research for a vaccine for humans.

. New brain cell research that suggested why the prevalence of HIV dementia has remained so high; and

. Conflicting studies on the risk of heart attack associated with the use of the drug Abacavir.

Staged at a cost of US$25 million, the conference is also expected to have a huge representation from the Caribbean, which has the second highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the world, next to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Former United States president Bill Clinton is expected to be one of the speakers at the opening ceremony on Sunday, August 3.

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