Change the Face of AIDS - Bill Gates

US Philanthropist Bill Gates says the world has historic opportunity to change the face of AIDS with the use of new funding models.

In a Keynote Speech to 18th International AIDS Conference, Philanthropist Bill Gates has outlined a roadmap to reduce new HIV Infections by 90% by 2031.

Gates called on all countries to keep up the fight against HIV/AIDS, saying the world has an historic opportunity to "change the face of AIDS." Gates said current efforts to treat people with HIV are saving millions of lives, and urged a renewed focus on reducing annual new HIV infections.

Gates, the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stressed that future progress against AIDS depends on aggressively preventing new HIV infections.

Gates said that while new HIV infections are already on the decline – the number of annual new infections dropped 17% from 2001 to 2008, according to UNAIDS – the pace of decline is not fast enough to have a significant impact on the course of the epidemic.

Gates said that while new funding is critical for achieving further progress on AIDS, the world also needs "a new focus on efficiency in
AIDS funding in prevention and treatment."

He said the world can't keep spending AIDS resources in exactly the same way as it does today and while there isneed for more funding, there is also a need to make sure that AIDS is getting the most benefit from each dollar of AIDS funding and every ounce of effort.

In his speech, Gates outlined key opportunities for AIDS investments to be more cost-effective and have greater impact:

• Rapid scale-up of the most cost-effective prevention tools
• Better use of data to make prevention decisions
• Reductions in the cost of delivering treatment
• Greater investment in vaccines and other breakthrough tools:

A webcast of Bill Gates' speech is available at www.kff.org/AIDS2010