Opened Monday, the 16th International AIDS Conference brought an estimated 24,000 delegates and 3,000 journalists from around the world.

    Besides big pharmaceutical companies making their HIV drugs available cheaply to developing nations and with generic drugs available, participants at the conference agreed the focus needed to move to preventing new infections.

    "Prevention of HIV had slipped off the agenda and now is being pushed by unexpected quarters," Dr. Peter Piot, head of the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS, said.

Participants of the 16th International AIDS Conference hold up placards during the inauguration of the event in Toronto. (Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

    "The problem with prevention for many is that you cannot avoid dealing with sex and drugs," Piot stressed.

    Bill Gates, founder of the Gate Foundation, said prior to the meeting, "I want to emphasize we are going to have to do a much better job of prevention."

    He warned that despite growing access to anti-retroviral drugs in countries hard-hit by HIV/AIDS, "between 4 million and 5 million people worldwide will become infected in the next year."

    Gates, whose foundation has just donated 500 million dollars to the Global Fund on AIDS, said he would seek good prevention programs that focus on women and called for accelerated research of microbicides (gels or creams that can prevent sexual transmission of the fatal and incurable virus) and oral drugs -- the next breakthrough.

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO), among 34 million adults currently infected with the AIDS virus, over half of them, or 17.3 million, are women. And with 2.8 million deaths of the disease a year, the need for prevention is desperate, WHO stressed. Enditem

    (Agencies)