It is urgent to "save Africa" from AIDS. For the first time, an African

policy-maker analyses the pandemic in depth, describing its dynamics

and raising new questions and new issues. The stakes are high: the future

of Africa and its development depend on the answers. In this appeal,

Urbain Olanguena Awono underlines the importance of international action

for universal access to prevention and treatment.

Overcoming this challenge demands major investments, ever increasing

human and financial resources and a permanent political commitment.

To reverse the course of the epidemic, the author recommends the idea

of a "social vaccine" that calls on the responsibility of African leaders

and African communities. Today we must defy the taboos and break

with some sociocultural factors likely to nourish new infections.

The Cameroonian Minister of Health pleads for an "inculturation"

of the combat against this disease that is deconstructing the economic

and social tissue of the continent and risks condemning it.