PanAfrica Annual Conference on HIV/AIDS Opens Amid ‘Finger-Pointing’ Among Attendees
The opening of the annual PanAfrica conference yesterday in Nashville, Tenn., was marked by "finger-pointing" over how to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the Nashville Tennessean reports. More than 230 AIDS activists, pharmaceutical representatives and government officials from around the world have convened for the three-day conference. Using the slogan, "Coming Together, Fighting Together," the conference was assembled by PanAfrica, a seven-year-old group aiming to foster business and humanitarian links to African nations. Adam Taylor, executive director of Global Justice, which has launched global AIDS campaigns on more than 180 college campuses, urged drug companies to establish a tiered-pricing system that would permit African countries to buy AIDS treatments at lower cost. A drug company representative expressed "disappoint[ment]" that the pharmaceutical industry is now viewed as the "pariah in the international HIV debate." In addition to treatment access problems, conference participants addressed racial disparities and cultural issues affecting treatment and prevention (Whitaker, Nashville Tennessean, 10/26).
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