PORT OF SPAIN, Oct 27 (AFP) - A United Nations conference on AIDS opened here Saturday with more than 450 delegates from around the world.

The five-day conference comes right after the recent UN General Assembly session.

Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint UN Program on AIDS, said it is the first to be held in the Caribbean region -- the second-highest affected region in the world.

The conference is an initiative of the Global Network of Peoples Living with HIV/AIDS.

The Caribbean is the second hardest HIV/AID-hit region of the world after Sub-Saharan Africa, St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas said, addressing the conference.

But he said regional governments were effectively dealing with the problem.

In the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, the prime minister said, the government has already prepared draft legislation aimed at ending discrimination and stigmatisation against people affected with the deadly disease.

Trinidad and Tobago's Health Minister Hamza Rafeeq reminded the delegates that AIDS was not a disease affecting primarily homosexuals.

"Our statistics reveal that the majority of cases in Trinidad and Tobago was contracted by heterosexual contact," Rafeeq stressed.

AIDS has no respect for "race, colour, creed, social status or economic standing," he added.

The theme of the five-day conference is "Celebrating Our Lives."

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