Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. December 9, 1995
Edmond Kizito / Reuter

The WHO-sponsored five-day conference will be attended by 3,000 delegates, including World Health Organisation director--general Hiroshi Nakajima, and is to be opened by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in the capital Kampala on Sunday.

AIDS, the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, has hit impoverished Africa hard. Some 11 million adults and one million children there have HIV which leads to AIDS, according to WHO figures which account only for registered cases.

WHO researchers say that by 2010, AIDS will have lowered the average life expectancy in Zambia to 33 years from 66; to 40 years from 70 in Zimbabwe, to 40 from 68 years in Kenya and to 31 from 43 years in Uganda.

In Uganda, health ministry figures show 1.8 million people or 10 percent of the total population have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Some 46,120 people are known to be suffering from full-blown AIDS but officials admit the number may be three times higher.

The "Ninth International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa" will appraise the latest developments in AIDS research and agree new strategies to deal with the crisis, conference chairman Dr Sam Okware told Reuters.

"We shall hear from researchers on how far they have gone in their work and compare notes on how different communities are coping with the problems associated with the scourge.

"We hope to raise awareness of the intensity of the problem in Africa and attract more funding for research into AIDS," said Okware, a physician and Ugandan health ministry official.

The conference will bring together the world's top researchers such as Luc Montagnier, the French scientist who first isolated the AIDS virus, and Mike Essex and Phyllis Kanki, researchers into the green-monkey virus which resembles HIV.

AIDS has not been easy to contain in Africa where even basic hygiene is difficult to come by and where protective measures like condom use is a luxury most cannot afford.

Poor health services or simply their total absence mean victims succumb very quickly to AIDS, which kills by destroying the body's ability to resist disease.

Excruciating poverty has also helped AIDS spread by pushing young girls into paid sex at a very early age, said Omwony-Ojok, chairman of the state Uganda Aids Commission.

A U.S. government advisory group on Wednesday described the AIDS epidemic in Africa as a "slow plague" that needed an immediate response.

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