The Australian government has committed an extra 400 million Australian dollars (352 million U.S. dollars) to help combat AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced the move Monday during the 4th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2007) in Sydney, Australia's largest city.
Downer said the Australian government was focusing its resources on fighting the virus in the region, where about 8 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.
"What we've done with HIV/AIDS is first of all focus very much on addressing the issue in the Asia-Pacific region," Downer told Australia's Nine Network television.
"We're doing our best, obviously, to assist," Downer said.
"We've provided 600 million dollars to address HIV/AIDS. Today we're increasing that to a billion dollars," he said.
Some 5,000 delegates from 133 countries are attending the IAS 2007, which opened in Sydney Sunday.
Over 3,100 original abstracts were submitted for consideration and 978 were accepted for oral or poster presentation.
This represents more than a 50 percent increase in the number of abstracts submitted to the 3rd IAS conference held in Rio de Janeiro in 2005.
Source: Xinhua
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