AIDS 2010: Reflecting on Day 2

After that, I attended a session where Bill Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was speaking about Building on Success: A roadmap for HIV Prevention. He spoke about the tough economic times and how even though organizations and governments would be less inclined to spend money on preventive measures, it was important to continually be innovative and create new tools that will lower the costs of drugs and lower the costs of delivery them. He also highlighted the importance of working together on these tools and presented a timeline that showed that these new tools (partially effective vaccines, ARV-based injections) could lead to a 90% reduction of the disease being spread in places like Zimbabwe and urban Benin.

I then paid a visit to the Global Village, a massive conference hall used for music, theater, and advocacy and preventive presentations by various NGOs. I also found various organizations and small businesses selling African tapestries and beads to help fund projects to combat HIV/AIDS. This is also where many of the youth-led groups attending the AIDS 2010 conference are holding their presentations and discussions. I have not been able to attend any of the performances yet, but I will try to tomorrow.