LUSAKA, Sept 12 (AFP) - An international conference on the AIDS pandemic in Africa, where 83 percent of the cumulative global AIDS deaths have occurred, opened in the Zambian capital Sunday.
The meeting, which has brought together an estimated 5,000 experts and political leaders from the continent and abroad, will seek ways to stop the fast growing threat to development on the continent.
More than 11 million Africans have died of the disease since its outbreak in the 1980s, and another 22.5 million are living with the AIDS virus HIV.
At least 95 percent of all AIDS orphans in the world are Africans, yet only one-tenth of the world's population lives on the continent.
The five-day 11th international conference on AIDS in Africa will see heads of state, scientists and people living with HIV trying to find ways to curb the spread of the scourge, which has outstripped malaria as the top killer on the continent.
Life expectancy, which had significantly improved, has been drastically cut, in some caes by as much as 30 years in the affected countries.
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