South Africa, Venue of the Great International Summit on AIDS

Pretoria, Dec. 7 (Prensa Latina) The South African city of Cape Town is home today of the largest international summit on the continent to address issues about the AIDS virus, with a 10 thousand delegates .

According to organizers, the 17th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (ICASA, English acronym) for five days will address the urgent need to ensure access to treatment for all concerned in Africa.

The conference 's main headquarters is the International Convention Centre in Cape Town, and the agenda includes experts also discuss issues related to the progress of modern science in relation to tuberculosis.

It is a high quality scientific meeting, professionals will be discussing strategic measures to ensure the health financing and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, Professor Robert Soudre, co-chairman of the sponsoring committee said.

The forum, with the backing of the World Health Organization, is co-chaired by Professor Ian Sanne, associate professor of the Faculty of Internal Medicine at the University of Witwatersrand .

Between 7 and 11 December are expected attendance and participation of thousands of state delegates, scientists, policy makers, community activists and government leaders from five continents.

ICASA 2013 provides a unique platform for evaluating progress, failures, and prospects for the fight against HIV and AIDS in the world by 2015, said Sanne.

Unlike other summits where delegates can only attend the event, ICASA has access to the general public, and organizers expect many testimonies of people who are surviving the deadly disease.

We call the world's attention on HIV in Africa, because the successes from the International AIDS Conference, Durban 2000, have been threatened by the global economic recession, said the professor Sanne.

Two years after 2015, the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals of the UN date, ICASA has very ambitious goals as: zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.

Our continent is at a crossroads, it's time for efficiency, innovation and pragmatic approaches to addressing issues related to HIV or stressed Soudre .

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most affected region in the world, with over 22 million people living with HIV and AIDS and the highest rates of tuberculosis.

In eastern and southern Africa, a total of 2.7 million aged 15 to 24 years are infected with HIV , representing half of the youth population of infected in the world.

The pandemic strikes with emphasis on Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, where one in 10 young people suffer the deadly disease.

There are an estimated 6.4 million HIV-positive, the country with the worst statistics in this section proportional in South Africa, according to institutional figures.