Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Justin Malewezi, the Malawi vice president, urged participants gathered in Addis Ababa for a major conference on development and AIDS in Africa, to intensify their fight against the pandemic.

"We face grief beyond words - and sorrow beyond tears" unless HIV/AIDS is halted through intensified and accelerated response to the challenge, he said.

Malewezi was speaking in one of two parallel plenary sessions of the 2nd African Development Forum.

The presentation on "Country Responses And Building On Lessons Learned" was made at the gathering which has attracted over 1,500 participants from 44 African countries and international organisations to deliberate on the theme of "AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge."

"As leaders we must be at the forefront of breaking the silence, upholding human dignity and showing compassion for all those with HIV/AIDS," Malewezi said.

He mentioned specific areas for preventing the transmission of the virus. Foremost among these was protecting the most venerable members of society - children and women.

Malewezi said empowering women, who are vulnerable to the HIV infection, would be the key to reducing the spread of the epidemic.

He also said changing men's sexual behaviour was another component in his country's fight to prevent the spread of the virus.

Others he cited were the establishment of multi-sectoral programme to cope with the problem, increasing access to sexual and reproductive health services and working with civil society to reduce the impact of the disease on agriculture and rural development.

"The major impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture includes serious depletion of human resources, diversion of capital from agriculture to patient care, loss of farm and non-farm income and other psychological impact that affect agricultural productivity," he pointed out.

On the private sector and labour policy, he said there was need to scale up the work place programme to provide information about HIV prevention and care.

He noted that the military should also be addressed, saying "military personnel are extremely vulnerable to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections."

"The strengths of the Malawi programme has been our ability to collaborate across all sectors. We have been ready to listen and respond to ideas and criticism from all quarters," Malewezi stated. "This openness is very important as nobody has all the answers."