Melbourne will host the International AIDS 2014 conference, bringing together world leaders, experts from diverse scientific backgrounds, activists and celebrities from 180 countries to discuss strategies to scale up responses to end the pandemic.

Organized by the International AIDS Society (IAS), the conference, which will be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition center, will begin on Sunday, July 20 and end on July 25. Workshops, trainings and meetings have been running since July 17.

UNAIDS, WHO and UN agencies, academic circles, and the private sector have worked jointly to organize the conference, which is the world'€™s largest forum for AIDS-issues.

Sharon Lewin, a leading AIDS researcher and professor who is also co-chair of the conference, recently told The Jakarta Post that the Melbourne conference would be organized around the theme, '€œstepping up the pace.'€

'€œThe theme reflects the ongoing progress being made in the scientific world toward HIV/AIDS prevention, cure and treatment, as well as optimism regarding the falling rates of new HIV infections worldwide,'€ said Lewin.

The international chair of the conference is the Nobel laureate professor, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who is also president of IAS and director of regulations in the retro-viral infections unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

UNAIDS reported that by the end of 2013 there were an estimated 35 million people across the globe living with HIV. Since a peak in 2005, AIDS-related deaths have declined by 35 percent and currently stand at 1.5 million persons a year. Tuberculosis continues to be the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. The report also showed new infections of HIV in 2013 were at their lowest level in years, standing at 2.1 million worldwide, a decrease of 13 percent over the last three years.

'€œBut it'€™s not enough. We have to accelerate the pace to eliminate AIDS. The conference is a significant opportunity to mobilize all stakeholders and build on the present momentum necessary to change the course of the epidemic for everyone affected,'€ said Lewin.

She added that despite significant progress worldwide, many regions, particularly the Asia-Pacific region -- where there are currently six million people living with HIV -- had yet to implement effective responses to the pandemic.

Jan Beagle, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, told the Post that Indonesia was an important country in the fight against AIDS and that needed it needed to focus on combatting the disease.

'€œIndonesia is one of three countries in Asia-Pacific region, including Pakistan and the Philippines, which have had the most new infection rates for HIV/AIDS over the last few years,'€ Beagle said. UNAIDS data showed the number of people living with HIV in Indonesia reached 610,000 people in 2012.

In the newest UNAIDS gap report released in Geneva on July 16, Indonesia, along with six other countries -- Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Russia and South Sudan'€”are facing the triple threat of HIV burden, low levels of treatment coverage and little to no decline in new HIV infection rates. The new report also revealed that 19 million of the 35 million people living with HIV globally did not know they were HIV-positive.

'€œWhether you live or die should not depend upon access to an HIV test,'€ said Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS.

A number of high profile figures will speak at the five-day conference. They include Nobel winners Peter Doherty, who discovered how immune systems get rid of the HIV virus, Myanmar politician Aung San Suu Kyi, former US President Bill Clinton, humanitarian activist and singer Sir Bob Geldoff and Indonesian Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi.

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