This was a message by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa when he launched the countdown to the 2016 International Aids Conference, to be held in Durban, next week.
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The papal nuncio to South Africa, Archbishop Peter Wells, and the Archbishop of Durban, Cardinal Wilfred Napier were among those welcoming participants to the opening session of the three day pre-conference. Robert Vitillo, Caritas Internationalis special advisor on HIV and health. “I am 11 years old and I have full-blown Aids”.
According to organisers, the conference at Durban’s Garden Court Hotel will result in a statement being issued calling for the provision of grandmothers’ human rights and that of their grand children. From that conference, he says, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was born, followed by the U.S government’s PEPFAR programme, the two largest funders of treatment programmes in low income countries.
“We had nothing”, said Dr. Jean Bassett, who founded the HIV treatment center at the Witkoppen Clinic in Johannesburg in 1996.Patience Ndlovu was one of those who received treatment at the clinic. Another vulnerable group, he adds, are babies infected through breast- feeding after their mothers stop taking the ARV drugs.
“We will remind them that he remains a source of inspiration to his mother, Gail, and his extended family here and elsewhere”.
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The International AIDS Conference is expected to benefit business in the hospitality industry to the tune of R800 million, as the city expects to welcome about 20 000 delegates and media from 180 countries.
