Participants at the 17th International AIDS Conference made a call on the last day of the meeting to end stigmatization against people living with the disease in order to improve efforts on the effectiveness of HIV treatment and prevention.

“The voices of those who bear the brunt of this pandemic have been loud and clear in Mexico City. If the world does not heed the call to ensure the human rights and dignity of every person affected by HIV, we will not achieve our goal of universal access (to treatment),” said Pedro Cahn, international co-chairman of AIDS 2008 and outgoing president of the International AIDS Society.

As long as the human rights of people infected with HIV are not be respected and as long as they face the others’ contempt, there will be no improvements in the fight with AIDS.

People living with the disease usually hide it because otherwise they would be marginalized. Some others fail to seek treatment for the same reason, which puts them at risk of dying. There is no cure for AIDS but the current antiretroviral drugs give people the chance to live a nearly normal life.

So far, AIDS has claimed the lives of about 25 million people. The good news is that the epidemic seems to be under control, as only 2.7 million people got infected with the virus in 2007, compared to over 5 million in early 2000s.

Injection drug users, homosexuals and bisexuals, women and teenagers are most at risk of contracting HIV. That’s why health officials should focus on campaign to provide the necessary information on how to avoid infection. In fact, the 25,000 participants at the conference agreed that there is still lots to be done in order to prevent HIV infection: from teaching, providing condoms and using safe syringes to supporting people suffering from AIDS with retroviral drugs and making sure they are taking good care of and not neglected, as it happens sometimes, especially in the developing countries.

Infected people “must never be seen simply as patients or prevention targets,” Dr. Luis Soto Ramirez, the Mexican co-chairman of AIDS 2008 said, highlighting once again the idea that HIV patients have the same human rights as any other healthy person.

But the enactment of laws criminalizing transmission of or exposure to HIV, which had become widespread, and the criminal prosecutions had turned the fight against HIV into a crisis.

“Rather, they radically increase HIV stigma and become barriers to testing and treatment,” Edwin Cameron, a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, said.

The next international AIDS conference will be held in Vienna, Austria, in 2010. Hopefully, the discussions held during the Mexico conference, will lead to fewer deaths from AIDS and fewer people infected with the virus.