Cape Town – As South Africa gears up to host the 21st International Aids Conference in 2016 it is set to put pressure on those African countries that discriminate against homosexuality.
The conference’s new chairwoman denounced such policies as the biggest hurdle in the fight against HIV.
Professor Olive Shisana, chief executive of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), who will chair the Durban conference, said while sub-Saharan Africa had made impressive gains in fighting the Aids epidemic, stigma and discrimination, mainly perpetuated by African governments, continued to “hinder the implementation of science on the ground”.
“The past three decades of HIV/Aids have taught us that the disease doesn’t discriminate but that people and governments do,” she said.
