Toronto — On Thursday last week, researchers and activists from around the world argued the ABC policy is ineffective at stemming the pandemic, the most passionate criticisms coming from Uganda's Beatrice Were.

Out of five presenters at the 16th International Aids conference in Toronto, her speech was the only one to elicit a standing ovation at the panel discussion titled "ABC In Africa: What's the Evidence?"

"Speaking as a woman activist, as a woman who abstained, as a woman who was faithful when I got married but still got HIV, I don't think there is any better evidence then hearing it from the horse's mouth," Were said.

Bolstering Were's argument that ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful and Condom use) -prevention programmes have failed Uganda, is a study released at this week's conference, that argues that while Uganda was successful at drastically bringing down the national Aids rate in the 1990s, incidences of HIV over the last five years are high.

"The decline in HIV prevalence and incidences that occurred throughout the 1990s has stopped, and there are some indications that it is rising," said Leigh Anne Shafer, who led the study with the Medical Research Council's research programme on Aids in Uganda. Shafer estimates that 6.4% of Ugandans are now infected with HIV, compared with 5.6% in 2000.

Many speakers had no kind words for the ABC preventive policy, with many castigating governments and or organisations spearheading the campaign.

Former US President Bill Clinton criticised the US administration for its support of abstinence, a programme he described as 'doomed to failure'.

While Clinton told delegates at the conference opening that abstinence programmes delay sexual activity but make teenagers less likely to use condoms when they start having sex, another study by John Jemmott of University of Philadelphia found the opposite to be true.

"It did not reduce intentions to use condoms, it did not reduce beliefs about the efficacy of condoms, it did not decrease consistent condom use and it did not decrease condom use at last sexual encounter," he said of his study, which featured over 600 African-American grade 6 and 7 students.

Despite this study, the billionaire founder of Microsoft and now Aids philanthropist, Mr Bill Gates and his wife Melinda down played ABC as having many limitations.

"Abstinence is often not an option for poor women and girls who have no choice but to marry at an early age. Being faithful will not protect a woman whose partner is not faithful and using a condom is not a decision that woman can make by herself, it depends on a man," Gates said. His wife said opposition to the widespread distribution of condoms is a serious obstacle to ending Aids spread.

"Some people believe condoms encourage sexual activity, so they want to make them less available," she said. "But withholding condoms does not mean fewer people are having sex. it means fewer people are having safe sex and more people die."