Microsoft founder Bill Gates has opened the 16th International AIDS conference in Toronto with a call for governments to make the battle against AIDS a high budget priority.
Gates spoke Sunday on the first day of the six-day conference, which has drawn 24,00 delegates from around the world.
Among the health care providers, scientists and politicians, are grandmothers from sub-Saharan Africa and Canada. The women discussed the impact of AIDS on their families and took part in a march to rally support for the fight against AIDS.
A United Nations report released in June said that in the past 25 years, 65 million people have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
25 million have died of AIDS related sicknesses. The report estimates 38-million people worldwide are living with HIV.