Urgent prevention programmes to address behaviour change are needed to fight HIV and AIDS, participants at an ongoing 5th Pan-African Youth Alive Education for Life conference have said at the Multimedia University of Kenya in Mbagathi Nairobi.

The conference whose theme is: HIV and AIDS Prevention Our Responsibility brings together the Youth Alive clubs and Education for Life in Africa to reflect on their achievements.

The participants from South Africa, Mauritius, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya hope to foster common goals, values, standards and policies leading to cross regional unity in the field of HIV and AIDS prevention and to also facilitate mutual sharing of best practices learning what works or does not.

The conference was officially opened by Sr. Felicia Matola, Director of Education for Life (EFL) conference on November 30 and runs through to December 5, 2009.

Matola said, "We are responsible for our own lives and the lives of those youth and adults we are privileged to serve to uphold the values that we preach to others."

She also added that those who are already infected have a huge role responsibility to make sure that they do not infect others.

The founder of Youth Alive, Miriam Durgan said, "So often we hear people say government should do.., or the Church should do.., but the truth is that each one of us has a great responsibility.

Durgan said that medical researchers are realising that addressing the behaviours connected with the spread of the HIV virus is what is getting the results.

"Sadly HIV is still spreading at the rate of 2.0 to 3.2 million cases a year and there are still millions of people who do not have access to ARV's," she also said.

Durgan said that with the Global recession there are fears that there will be further cuts in funding and due to this, economies in developing nations cannot sustain millions of new cases each year who need expensive treatment.

Fr Daniel Mureithi from Commission for Pastoral and Lay Apostolate Kenya Episcopal Conference (KEC) said that condoms are not a solution to HIV and AIDS but they promote the same disease and said that the 100 percent proven solution to HIV is abstinence and faithfulness.

"Many of the global players in the fight focus on solution (condom) before addressing the root cause of the disease. They shy away from addressing the two basic issues contribution to the spread of the disease -premarital sex and promiscuity," Fr Mureithi said.

Edward Mariega of Kenya National AIDS Control Council called on adults and youth to work together in order to fight the disease and advised the youth to demand for more resources for HIV.