On the July 18th, 2010 the XVII International AIDS Conference was officially opened. The most interesting part of the opening was that it was made lively by the protest by the HIV/AIDS activists around the world. They were holding up the signs that says „BROKEN PROMISES KILL“ and „NO RETREAT! FUND AIDS NOW“. The aim of the protest was to call upon the government of G8 countries to keep the funding for HIV flowing. The financial crisis that strikes the world recently had put many organisations in limbo as many funding agencies are starting to withdraw or reduce their support on HIV prevention programs.
„This HIV issue had been around for more than two decades now, it is not a sexy issue anymore. But this is not about popularity or trend. This is people´s life we are talking about. Cutting off or reduce the funding on HIV means cutting off people´s lives!“ said Frika, a well-known HIV activist from Indonesia. „It is also not logical to reduce the funding when we are actually making some improvements. The vaccine is now in the process of further and more intensive research and the growing of the epidemic is considerably slower. Why reducing the financial support when we are nearly there already?“ she continued. Frika joined the protest with over a hundred of other activists who intervened the opening ceremony and surely was successfully passing the message acrossed.
Viewing HIV/AIDS as a sexy or trendy issue had put the whole cause in jeopardy because at some point the trend will be shifted to something else. And the fact is, we cannot shift our attention and efforts from HIV/AIDS. We all know that the existing statistics reflects only the tip of the iceberg, therefore, a lot should be done still. It is simply out of the question to retreat.
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