AIDS Conference and behaviour change

The 19th annual International AIDS Conference ends on Friday. The week-long event brought together experts and policy makers around the world to talk about the epidemic. The theme is “Turing the Tide Together”, and the conference has been the venue for the announcement of new medical treatments, as well as data showing a decrease in infection rates around the world. However, some experts say there has been little on how behaviour change has led to a reduction in transmission rates, as opposed to just relying on condoms.

“There have been changes in behaviour,” said Dr. Timothy Flanigan of Brown University Medical School. “If you look at Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe…you see increases in rates of abstinence, you see marked decreases in multiple partnerships, and you also see increases in condom use when people are going to have risky sex anyway.”

He told Vatican Radio promoting abstinence and faithfulness needs to be better promoted by everyone.

“A clear message out there really saying that early age of sexual initiation, saying multiple partnerships, is dangerous, is risky, will spread HIV, wills spread other STD’s, is really, really important,” Dr. Flanigan said. “But if you cruise through [the International AIDS Conference], which is enormous and important, you would have heard very little of that. People working in the field know it.”

Listen to the interview by Charles Collins with Dr. Flanigan: