MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Approximately 23,000 people from around the world on Sunday converged on the Auditorio Nacional here for the opening session of the International AIDS Society (IAS) XVII International AIDS Conference, to call for universal action now in combating the deadly disease.

Not even a torrential downpour or a demonstration by locals against Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa reform plans, could dampen the spirits of those in attendance - many of whom stood in long queues for up to two hours to get inside the venue in time for the 7:00 pm start.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa (right) greeting Dr Pedro Cahn at the official opening session of the AIDS 2008 conference in Mexico City, Mexico on Sunday. (Photo: International AIDS Society)

Inside, cultural groups gave a gala performance and huge screens displayed video messages of the impact of the disease around the world.
Various groups chanted slogans in support of their individual causes, although the message was pretty much the same - countries should begin action now.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in his address, said it was fitting that the conference was taking place in Latin America (for the first time) as the region was the source of some of the most dynamic responses to the disease, as well as home to some of the greatest challenges.

At the end of last year, it was estimated that 230,000 people in the Caribbean were living with the disease, making the region the second most heavily affected area of the world after Sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that 27,000 people are infected with HIV in Jamaica .

Ban said most countries still have a long way to go to meet the goal they set two years ago at the United Nations General Assembly, to scale up universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.

"As a result they will have great difficulty in reaching the Millennium Development Goal of halting and reversing the spread of AIDS by 2015," he said.

On the issue of stigma and discrimination, he said one-third of countries still do not have laws to protect people living with HIV, as discrimination remains legal against women, men who have sex with men, sex workers, drug users and ethnic minorities.

This, he said, must change.

"I call on politicians around the world to speak out against discrimination and protect the rights of people living with and affected by HIV, for schools to teach respect, for religious leaders to preach tolerance and for the media to condemn prejudice in all its forms," he told Sunday's gathering.
IAS president Pedro Cahn called on UN member states to work with all the populations at risk for the disease.

He said Latin America and the Caribbean were also suffering the consequences of the AIDS epidemic because of poverty and marginalisation, and so the two million people in the region should not be excluded from shared global agenda.

In the meantime, Festus Mogae - former president of Botswana - said African countries remain disproportionally affected by the epidemic as two-thirds of the people living with HIV are in this region.

Twenty-four per cent of the adults in Botswana are HIV infected.

Sunday, the Mexican president also gave his commitment to fighting the disease announcing that antiretroviral drugs would be made free for all Mexicans.

Among the other speakers at the opening session were Denzil Douglas, prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis and head of the Pan Caribbean Partnership on HIV/AIDS (PANCAP), and Dr Maria Teresa Fernandez, first vice-president of Spain.

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