XIII International AIDS Conference, 2000

The XIII International AIDS Conference was held in Durban, South Africa, during the week of July 9-14 2000.

The theme for 2000 was "Breaking the Silence", which is described as "the urgent need to break the silence on equal access to treatment and care; improved and ongoing prevention of HIV transmission; governmental and private sector support of HIV education and resources; human rights; access of appropriate and meaningful information to all sectors and ensuring a supportive environment for people living with HIV/AIDS (PWA) in society.

[2] It was at this conference that Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, then Chairman of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, first called for a global fund to fight AIDS.

This recommendation was picked up the following year in the establishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

[3] An 83-year-old and fragile-looking Nelson Mandela gave the closing address, and part of it is reproduced here: To have been asked to deliver the closing address at this conference, which in a very literal sense concerns itself with matters of life and death, weighs heavily upon me for the gravity of the responsibility placed on one.