Gates says world has chance to 'change the face of AIDS'

Vienna - Bill Gates gave the keynote speech to the 18th International AIDS Conference today calling on all countries to keep up the fight against HIV/AIDS saying that the world has an historic opportunity to "change the face of AIDS."

Gates is in Vienna representing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at the AIDS conference. During his speech he praised current efforts to treat people with the virus, saying that millions of lives have been saved. Gates also said focus needs to be directed at reducing annual new HIV infections by up to 90 percent by 2031, the year that will mark 50 years of the AIDS epidemic. "The past few years of AIDS tell a story of remarkable progress," Mr. Gates said today in a press release, noting that more than five million people currently receive antiretroviral treatment for the disease, a 12-fold increase in just six years. "By bringing attention to HIV, we have also awakened the world to other health problems of the poor, like malaria and tuberculosis, where we are seeing phenomenal success," he said. New HIV infections are on the decline, with the annual rate dropping 17 percent from 2001 to 2008 according to UNAIDS. That sounds good on paper but the reality is for every two people with the virus who have access to treatment, another five people are becoming newly infected. "We have to be honest with ourselves," Gates said. "We can't keep spending AIDS resources in exactly the same way we do today. As we continue to advocate for more funding, we also need to make sure we're getting the most benefit from each dollar of AIDS funding and every ounce of effort." During his speech, Gates called for the rapid scale-up of prevention tools that are "cheap, effective, and easy to apply." Male circumcision and preventing transmission of the virus of mother to child are two of those measures according to Gates. He said there are 41 million men in sub-Saharan Africa who would benefit from male circumcision, but only 150,000 have had the procedure in the past few years. Countries that are cutting back on prevention for high-risk groups such as injection drug users are costing lives and wasting money warned Gates. Gates said it's vital the delivery costs of HIV drugs be reduced. In many cases, the cost of getting drugs to those who need them is much higher than the actual medication. "If we could limit delivery costs to no more than twice the cost of the drugs themselves, we could treat more than twice as many people for the same amount of money," Gates said.