Delegates to the XIX International AIDS Conference greeted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton with cheers and applause as she outlined the U.S. goal to achieve an AIDS-free generation in the near future, and she pledged an ongoing U.S. commitment to sustain funding for global programs to prevent the spread of HIV, to treat infected persons and to assist their families.

"We will not back off, we will not back down," Clinton declared to a chorus of whistles and hoots. "We will fight for the resources necessary to achieve this historic milestone."

Clinton first raised the call for achieving an AIDS-free generation in November 2011 in a speech at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world's foremost research organizations, which is developing the scientific understanding to make an AIDS-free goal possible.

Since that time, Clinton said, all U.S. government health agencies have been working at an increased pace to reach the goal domestically and internationally. HIV -- human immunodeficiency virus -- will not be completely absent in an AIDS-free generation, but, Clinton said, it will be so controlled by medications and so contained by prevention methods that no one will develop the debilitating disease that steals vitality and productivity from its victims.

Source: All Africa News