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Bill Gates spoke at the 18th International Aids Conference in Vienna and said that the
world has an opportunity to reduce the number of AIDS infections by 90 percent in the coming
decades.
This is an opportunity, we're at a turning point. We can keep doing things the existing
way and keep getting modest results, or we can change. We can push ourselves to get the
most out of every dollar of funding and every ounce of prevention effort.
While the number of new annual infections has dropped 17% worldwide between 2001 and
2008, the decline isn't' fast enough to have a significant impact on the disease. For every
two new people who gain treatment, another five become newly infected. Gates thinks that
the disease could be slowed by making smarter investments.
The problem is that countries are not using this data to make their funding decisions.
Instead, politicians make them based on fear and stigma. They don't want involve themselves
with people who engage in behavior that makes them uncomfortable. As President Clinton said
this morning, every dollar wasted puts a life at risk. If you're afraid to match your prevention
efforts against the right population, then you're wasting money and that costs lives.
Gates is optimistic that scientific efforts will continue to improve the possibilities
for treatment.
Fortunately, we don't have to assume in the future that we'll be limited to fighting ***
with the tools we have today. - Vaccines, new diagnostics, and ARB based prevention
are some of the tools I'm excited about.
Reporting from Boston, I'm Nick Barber, IDG News Service.