ABUJA, Dec 5 (AFP) - African and international health experts stressed Monday the need for targeted responses to the specific problems the HIV/AIDS virus poses for different sections of society around the continent.
As the 14th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) got underway in the Nigerian capital Abuja, delegates warned that billions of dollars in funding will not be enough to beat the disease if its effects are not fully understood.
"We have to recognise the distinctiveness of the epidemic in Africa. Africa's epidemic is not homogenous," said Chewe Luo, senior advisor on HIV and AIDS with the UN children's agency UNICEF, noting the different effects of the virus on men and women, young people and the elderly.
"The discrepancy (in terms of vulnerability to the HIV virus) between men and women is something that we have not given enough attention to," she added.
Africa is home to around three-quarters of the women worldwide infected with the virus.
Sub-Saharan Africa alone is home to barely 10 percent of the world's population but accounts for more than 60 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS, what is 25.8 million out of a worldwide total of 40.3 million.
Michel Sidibe, a high-ranking official within the UN body coordinating the fight against the virus UNAIDS, said the pandemic is "one of the largest obstacles to development and poverty eradication" on the continent.
"The days of superficial responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic are gone. This is the time to show resolve, commitment and focus. This is the time to build viable and serious networks. And this is the time when, once again, the public and private sectors must join hands to fight against the pandemic," said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo during a brief visit to the conference.
Meanwhile, about 100 young people demonstrated in Abuja's International Conference Centre, asking to be more closely involved in the choice and implementation of programs to fight the HIV pandemic, complaining that they, the group hardest hit by the virus, are seldom consulted.
Seated in a circle with tape over their mouths, they held up banners saying "Young people are neglected. Why?" and "Young people speak the truth".
Just before the ICASA conference, some 300 young people, drawn from across the continent, spent three days in Abuja discussing AIDS and their peers. They were to have presented their conclusions at the ICASA opening ceremony Sunday but their slot was cancelled when the rest of the proceedings went over the allocated time.
Delegates are focusing on how best to spend the billions of dollars now being given to fight the disease and how best to combine the work of aid agencies, health ministries and churches.
The conference, which is organized once every two years, runs until Friday.
On Sunday, the heads of state and government assembled in the Malian capital Bamako for the Africa-France summit called on the international community to urgently "mobilize more financial resources to support regional and national efforts to fight HIV/AIDS."
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