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Stephen Lewis, a United Nations special envoy of HIV/AIDS in Africa, speaks in Kaufman Hall at th

Studies and projects done by HIV/AIDS activists and researchers from all over the world were presented Friday at Kaufman Hall at a conference titled “AIDS in Africa.”

The symposium, presented by the UCLA AIDS Institute, consisted of three panels, speakers Stephen Lewis and Laurie Garrett, and performances by Iddi Saaka and Peter Carpenter.

The day’s events began at the Fowler Museum Terrace where, after a buffet luncheon, five drummers led a procession to Kaufman Hall. Keynote speaker Lewis, former Canadian ambassador and United Nations special rnvoy of HIV/AIDS in Africa, then spoke about the peril of AIDS in Africa. Lewis emphasized the threat to women undergoing sexual assault and a possible technological breakthrough regarding an internal vaginal microbicide women could wear in order to prevent being infected by HIV.

“What has not changed in Africa is the situation of women. The microbicide would give them a chance to protect themselves without men’s knowledge. It would be a breakthrough in a situation that is frankly appalling,” Lewis said.

Other panelists presented various studies being done on the prevention and cure of AIDS in Africa including the dangers of conveying the disease through breast milk, the threat of an escalating AIDS and malaria rate in Angola due to the end of a 30-year civil war and the resurgence of migration from neighboring countries, and the political consideration of HIV/AIDS as a national security threat.

Many presenters throughout the conference accentuated the need to regard AIDS not as an isolated disease but as a social problem that affects, and is affected by, many aspects of society. “One of the big issues we have to grapple with is the link between HIV/AIDS and famine, sexual violence, war and poverty,” said Jennifer Klot, senior adviser of the Social Science Research Council. She continued to say that the consideration of AIDS as a security threat to African countries was essential to treating the disease.

Speakers also stressed the need for governments to collaborate with African officials and people.

Karen Cheng, a researcher from Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles, emphasized the use of sex as an emotional relief for the people that live in the war-torn and poverty-stricken continent.

“One of the challenges of HIV prevention is that war causes people to focus on today, and as we all know HIV is a long-term disease. Soldiers often, within the first weekend of getting their salary, spend all of it on sex and alcohol,” she said. “We can’t decontextualize people from their past, their present or their future.”