The International AIDS Society will reassess the way it organizes international conferences in the wake of visa denials by the Canadian government, the organization’s president said Friday in Montreal.
The comments came after International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan canceled his planned attendance at the conference.
Adeeba Kamarulzaman told attendees at the opening ceremony of the AIDS 2022 conference that she was “deeply distressed by the high number of visa refusals and pending visas that have prevented many registered delegates, including IAS personnel and leadership, from entering Canada.”
She said the International AIDS Society, the association of HIV/AIDS professionals that organized the conference, wanted to ensure that the conferences included the communities most affected by HIV.
“We know that at the root of the difficulties experienced by many AIDS 2022 participants in entering Canada lies a broader problem of global inequality and systemic racism that significantly impacts global health,” she said. “HIV, in particular, has always disproportionately affected the most marginalized.”
International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan’s office says “operational issues” prevented him from attending. (Adrian Wilde/The Canadian Press)
Other speakers strongly criticized Canada’s visa policies. Activist and author Tim McCaskill told attendees that if countries like Canada aren’t willing to allow “all stakeholders” to attend, “then we need to hold these conferences in places that are.”
At one point during the opening ceremony, a group of protesters took to the stage to decry visa denials and the disparity in the global response to HIV. “An end to AIDS conferences in racist countries,” said one woman as she gave a short speech.
Sajjan was scheduled to speak at the opening of the conference, but he canceled and was not replaced by another representative of the Canadian government.
Sajjan’s office said “operational issues” prevented him from attending. “We remain steadfast supporters of UNAIDS, the Global Fund and our trusted partners,” Haley Hodgson, a spokeswoman for the minister, said in an email.
Omar Sharif Jr., the master of ceremonies for the opening event, said Sajjan notified organizers of the cancellation “a while ago,” prompting boos from the crowd.
Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director (centre), used her speech to call for a world where people from the Global South and their experiences are welcome in rich countries. (Ryan Remoertz/The Canadian Press)
Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, said she was “sad that the Canadian government is not here.”
In her speech, she called for a fairer world where everyone has access to quality health care and where people living with HIV do not face stigma, “including a world where people from the Global South are not denied access to rich countries , to contribute their expertise,” she added.
The conference, which attracts researchers, practitioners, activists and people living with HIV, focuses on both scientific progress in the fight against AIDS and the need to increase funding for the HIV response.
Impact of COVID-19 on the HIV response
UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, said millions of lives are at risk due to disruptions in HIV care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and declining funding for the HIV response.
“As new infections increase in many regions and access to treatment slows down, how can it be right that funding should decrease?” Byanimima told reporters earlier on Friday.
One of the messages of the conference is that if treatment has made the viral load undetectable, the virus is no longer transmitted.
This applies to both sexual partners and pregnant HIV-positive women who could pass the virus to children, said Maureen Murenga, director of the Lean on Me Foundation. Her Kenyan organization works with adolescent girls and young women living with HIV or affected by tuberculosis.
“When I was diagnosed with HIV 20 years ago, I was given six months to live because there was no treatment. “I didn’t know that I would live long enough to get to a point where people living with HIV, on effective treatment, could not transmit HIV to our partners,” she told reporters.
The conference will run until Tuesday and more than 9,000 delegates are expected to attend in person, with another 2,000 registered to participate remotely.
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