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Peter Piot, the tireless outgoing founding director of UNAIDS, put it bluntly in an address to the pre-conference MSM Global Forum on August 1:

"Homophobia - in all its forms - is one of the top five barriers to ending this epidemic, worldwide. The fight against the epidemic is entering a new phase, and if governments and NGOs and international organizations like my own do not take up the fight for gay rights, and the rights of all people with diverse sexuality, we will not end AIDS."

He went on to say that in nearly every country (including the USA) the resources devoted to prevention, research and care among MSM are vastly smaller than their numerical weight in the epidemic would compel as a matter of fairness and effectiveness.

Earlier presentations at the MSM forum had reviewed in detail what we know, and what we don't know, about the epidemic among MSM in various countries and about how the disproporionate impact on MSM everywhere is a general drive of the epidemic.

In Latin America, MSM are the major affected population throughout, and in much of the Caribbean as well. In Asia, MSM are a significant part iof the epidemic in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China.

In most Asian countries, MSM are the third part of the "triumvirate of concentrated epidemics," including commercial sex workers and injection drug users (and, of course, some MSM belong to all three groups).  read more »