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Clinton announces U.S. to host 2012 International AIDS Conference

by Rhonda J Mangus | December 1, 2009 at 05:21 am

278 views | 18 Recommendations | 5 comments

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the United States will host the 2012 International AIDS Conference. The announcement came one day before World AIDS Day 2009, celebrated today, December 1.

"I'm pleased to announce that, with the repeal of the ban, the International AIDS Society will hold the 2012 international AIDS conference in Washington DC," Clinton said on the eve of World AIDS Day.

"This conference will draw together 30,000 researchers, scientists, policy makers, health care providers, activists and others from around the world," Clinton said at the White House.

"On World AIDS Day, let us renew our commitment to ensuring that those infected and affected by HIV ... that all those who have joined together to fight this pandemic will someday live in a world where HIV/AIDS can be prevented and treated as a disease of the past," Clinton said.

The decades-old travel ban on HIV-positive visitors was addressed by President Barack Obama in October. The travel ban on HIV-positive visitors will be lifted in 2010, making it possible for the United States to host the 2012 International AIDS Conference.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed US President Barack Obama's removal of a decades-old travel ban on HIV-positive visitors, and urged other countries to do the same.

"I congratulate President Obama on announcing the removal of the travel restrictions for people living with HIV from entering the United States," Ban said on Saturday in a statement released by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

"I urge all other countries with such restrictions to take steps to remove them at the earliest."

"Such restrictions, strongly opposed by UNAIDS, are discriminatory and do not protect public health," the program said.

Ban has made the lifting of stigma and discrimination connected with AIDS a personal mission, first calling on countries to lift their travel restrictions in 2008 at a UN meeting on the disease.

The travel restrictions "should fill us all with shame," Ban told a global AIDS conference in August 2008.

Cape Town, South Africa, hosted the 2009 International AIDS Conference in July and Vienna was selected to undertake the 2010 International AIDS Conference.

Read full text of Secretary of State's Remarks on The Administration's Efforts on HIV/AIDS

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Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 06:12 on December 1st, 2009

It.s about time, incredibly enough when I used to be send on courses with the US Army in Fort Huachuca or Benning and Bragg, I used to have to get an AIDS test.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 22:37 on December 2nd, 2009

Thank you, ACP! I believe it. What I find interesting too is that in the US, up to the late 70's I believe, one could not obtain a marriage license without having a blood test for syphilis. Now, no one needs a blood test to obtain a marriage license. I believe, although I am not certain, they stopped testing because of the HIV/AIDS virus -- one could only imagine the outcome.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 15:50 on December 3rd, 2009

Blood tests were a regular routine decades ago for marriages. I don't recall blood tests being required here in the 70s. The were also not required in Germany in the 60s.

reagan (not verified)

at 03:33 on December 19th, 2009

Iam pleased that the U.S is among the countries which show the importance of blood test to avoid the easy transmission of aids and urges people to attend them in the Host International Conference.

Fabunmi, Ayodeji Ayodele (not verified)

at 19:06 on December 27th, 2009

I am glad that the United States of America is removing travel restrictions for people living with HIV from entering the United States, though in steming the spread of HIV/AIDS globally, the importance of blood test cannot be overemphasised.