WASHINGTON - Health officials tackling the global AIDS epidemic will meet in the United States for the first time in 22 years after President Obama lifted the ban on travel by people infected with HIV.
The International AIDS Society will hold its biennial conference of scientists, policy makers, and patients in Washington from July 22 to 27, 2012, Robin Gorna, the society’s executive director, said yesterday.
The Geneva-based group is the world’s leading independent association of HIV professionals, with more than 14,000 members from 190 countries.
An estimated 33.4 million people around the world have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and 2.7 million new infections and 2 million deaths occurred last year, according to the United Nations.
The AIDS Society aims to highlight US research and help end discrimination caused by the travel ban by returning the conference to the country for the first time since 1990.
“This is a real moment in history to put an end to the AIDS crisis and we can only do that if we learn from each other,’’ Gorna said yesterday, on the eve of World AIDS Day, an international observance established by the World Health Organization in 1988.
Obama said on Oct. 30 that he would let HIV patients enter the United States in an effort to remove the stigma from the disease and encourage more testing. The AIDS Society had already settled on Washington as the 2012 conference site in anticipation of the White House repealing the travel ban, Gorna said. The conference is expected to draw 25,000 people, she said.
It was last held in Washington in 1987, two years after the inaugural event in Atlanta. The 1990 meeting was held in San Francisco.
Twelve nations ban travel by people infected with HIV including China, which is reconsidering its policies as a result of the US decision, Gorna said. Other nations include Malaysia, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates.
