Nairobi — Africa will be the focus of the world's Aids experts in two weeks as 8,000 delegates gather in Nairobi for the ICASA conference.

The International Conference on HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) brings together health providers, government officials, politicians and non-governmental organisation delegates to share experiences on the continent's responses to Aids.

The conference, which is usually held once every two years, will be held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre from September 21 to 26 on the theme: Access to Care: Challenges.

The conference, which will be the thirteenth, is co-hosted by the ICASA secretariat and the Kenya Government with the support from donors and other groups. President Kibaki is the patron of the conference.

Meanwhile, Christians have been urged to rise to the Aids challenge by embracing and counselling the affected and infected.

Tourism and Information minister Raphael Tuju yesterday asked the Church to break its silence on the disease. "We as Christians should embrace those infected among us. The issues should come out.

"Stories told about those affected with the virus may help to galvanise our thoughts about it. The information that is available should be published to help the public," the minister said.

Mr Tuju said many Kenyans were not aware that some couples were discordant, where one spouse can get infected with the virus while the other does not. "There is a window of opportunity that can be exploited and lives saved," he said.

Research in the last one year, he said, had shown that up to 40 per cent of couples in Kenya could be discordant.

He was speaking at the St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Nairobi where prayers were held ahead of the ICASA conference.

During the service, worshippers wrote short messages on Aids on a quilt - a spread made out of cloth to be hang on walls at the conference.