The 13th International AIDS Conference begins July 9 in Durban, South Africa -- the first time the conference has been held in Africa -- and is expected to touch on a wide range of subjects from the straightforward to the highly controversial.

The biennial conference, which wraps up July 14, is expected to draw at least 10,000 researchers, activists and journalists as scientists from around the globe report on the disease's spread and offer new information on treatments, preventions and possible vaccines, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The choice of South Africa as the conference site has helped the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) bring world media attention to southern Africa's deadly problem. An estimated 20 percent of South African adults are HIV-infected, and the numbers are roughly the same in other nations in the region.

Conference organizers hope the event will spur more action by Western nations to address this epidemic. At the same time, they hope to persuade South African President Thabo Mbeki and the nation's other leaders to drop their sometimes bizarre public statements about HIV and AIDS and launch substantive programs to reign in the disease, the newspaper reports.

Mbeki earlier this year told Western reporters he believed HIV didn't cause AIDS and that "different biological circumstances" may cause most African AIDS cases.

Given the high-profile nature of the event, this conference isn't expected to yield new scientific findings. Organizers instead are focusing on such social and political issues as the growing problem of AIDS orphans, providing affordable drug treatments in poorer nations, and the search for possible AIDS vaccines.

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