Good evening. My name is Luis-Soto Ramirez. I am the AIDS 2008 Co-Chair and International AIDS Society Governing Council Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. I hope you all have an opportunity to experience the warmth of our hospitality both during and after the conference, and I would particularly like to welcome you to my home town of Mexico City. Welcome!

First, I would like to thank our Major Industry Sponsors: Abbott, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer and Tibotec. I would also like to thank the Mexican Federal government, the Mexico city government, our National University (thanks Dr. Jose Narro) and the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán among many many others. All these companies and institutions are stalwart supporters of this conference and on behalf of the Conference Coordinating Committee; I offer you our thanks for your contribution, and your support in making AIDS 2008 a reality.

We in the Latin American and Caribbean region have waited a long time to host the International AIDS Conference, and I am delighted that we now have the opportunity to share our successes, our challenges, and our hopes for the future at this Seventeenth International AIDS Conference.

We have made important progress in the response to HIV here in Latin America. Several countries in this region have challenged the idea that treatment could only be accessible to the lucky few who had the money to pay for antiretroviral drugs; and we are fighting hard to lower drug prices to bridge the gap between north and south. The result is that sixty-two percent of people in need are on treatment in this region – the highest proportion of any developing region. But although this is important progress, we know it is not enough.

It is time to bring drugs to everyone in need, regardless of who they are, where they live, or how much they earn. It is time for Universal Action NOW.

Yet drugs alone are not the answer; we need the laboratories, health workers and strong health systems to support the long-term care needs of people living with HIV in this region. We need to strengthen collaboration between government, civil society and the scientific community to deliver the prevention, care and treatment interventions required to make a difference: in every country of this region, and in every corner of the globe.

This means challenging head-on the stigma and discrimination that continue to hamper our progress against this disease. In this region, where men who have sex with men continue to bear the brunt of the epidemic, that means challenging homophobia everywhere in our society: in government policies, in health care settings, in our families, and yes, in our churches as well.

HIV is a viral infection, not a moral infection and even less a political one.

And we must pay attention to where the epidemic is going, as well as where it is today: here, in our corner of the world infections are increasing among injecting drug users, and through heterosexual transmission, affecting more and more females. Here, as in other regions, HIV disproportionately affects the poor and the disenfranchised, especially sex workers, indigenous people and migrants.

It is time for all of us to hear this message, to understand our common humanity and to reject the politics of division and prejudice; it is time to end the stigma and discrimination that are driving this epidemic. Preserving human rights is another key for HIV prevention! It is time for Universal Action Now.

With an estimated 2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the region, AIDS 2008 will attract unprecedented attention, high-profile activism, and worldwide media coverage. I hope this will translate into the new investments and collaborative research required to meet the growing challenges in this region. At this conference, Latin America and the Caribbean will showcase many good examples in the response to HIV: I hope you learn from us, as we have learned from you over the years. And as a sample of this, I would like to inform you that we have a total of 22,238 participants, the highest ever for a conference in a developing country, but specially the highest ever of LatinAmerican representatives with 6847.

We received close to 11,000 regular abstract submissions and 434 late breakers. Of those more than 7,500 will be presented. Moreover, for the first time in these Conferences Latin America and the Caribbean was the region with the second largest number of abstract submissions in the world. Thank you to all the people from this region for your support! Whether you participate in person, by remote hub, or online, I hope you will embrace the theme of Universal Action Now as if it were your own, by increasing your personal commitment to the fight against AIDS, and by not stopping until we end this epidemic.

BIENVENIDOS A MEXICO!!!!!!!

Thank you.

Dr. Luis E. Soto-Ramirez

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