ILLICIT DRUGS FUEL HIV RATES: MD

TORONTO -- The illicit drug trade is fuelling HIV-infection rates in
many parts of the world -- and too much reliance on punitive drug
enforcement is compromising efforts to prevent spread of the disease,
the International AIDS Conference was told Tuesday.

Australian physician Alex Wodak said that one in every 10 new HIV
infections around the world occurs among injection drug users, and
they are responsible for about 30 per cent of new infections outside Africa.

"And the proportion of global HIV infections attributable to
injection drug use are growing," said Wodak, director of the Alcohol
and Drug Service at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney.

Bill Clinton, in his speech, paid tribute to Stephen Lewis, the UN
special envoy for AIDS in Africa, saying the world owes the Canadian
a debt of gratitude for his passion and no-nonsense approach in the
multi-fronted battle against the disease.

"I always love sharing the stage with Stephen Lewis, although he is a
hard act to follow," Clinton said with a grin after Lewis eloquently
introduced him.

"Empowering women to protect themselves seems so elemental, and yet
when I hear people pontificating against AIDS and acting as if we can
do everything through abstinence, I think they don't know what most
women are up against in too many parts of the world today," Clinton
said, receiving an enthusiastic burst of applause. Abstinence is a
contentious issue in HIV-AIDS circles. PEPFAR (the President's
Emergency Program for AIDS Relief), for instance, is allocating
one-third of its five-year, $15-billion funding to abstinence-based
prevention programs.

Clinton said he does not condemn those whose values lead them to
promote abstaining from sex. But he said he doesn't think
abstinence-only programs work.