International AIDS Conference Emphasizes Evidence-Based Prevention

Washington, DC - August 21, 2006

At last week’s XVI International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Toronto, participants emphasized more boldly than ever before evidence-based prevention and the need to empower women to protect themselves from this deadly disease. As a founding member of the Caucus for Evidence-Based Prevention, PAI urges the implementation of HIV prevention policies centered on sound, scientific evidence and to give all people—especially women—the tools and information they need to protect themselves.

High-profile attention surrounding evidence-based prevention has resulted in a push for comprehensive programs that provide a full range of interventions and provide vulnerable populations—including young people, injection drug users and sex workers—with access to the tools they need to prevent infection. New technologies, such as microbicides, show promise in empowering women to protect themselves. However, while we are waiting for these technologies to become available, it is important to remember that condoms are currently the only method we have to prevent HIV transmission between sexually active individuals.

And proven behavioral interventions already exist. Programs that utilize them effectively should be expanded, funded and supported by policies rather than hampered by them. Narrowly-focused, ideologically-driven policies ignore large numbers of people at risk of contracting—or spreading—HIV/AIDS.

In two years at the next IAC in Mexico City, we hope that political leaders—who were absent from this year’s debate—will join the discussion. By holding our leaders accountable to evidence-based prevention plans, we can make progress. Only by implementing policy based on sound science, can we save lives.

Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.