AIDS advocate to speak at ICN conference.

THE UNITED Nations special envoy for Africa for HIV/AIDS Stephen Lewis will speak at the International Council of Nurses' conference in Morocco next month. Lewis will lead the symposium Nursing and HW/AIDs Care: Training, Access and Stigma.

According to an ICN press release, he has extensive experience as a politician, diplomat and humanitarian and has been in volved in African afairs for decades. He believes the course of the pandemic can be changed. "It is absolutely certain that the pandemic can be turned around with a joint and herculean effort between the African countries themselves and the international community," he said.

Two other renowned HIV/AIDS special ists will also address the symposium. The first is the professor of nursing at the University of Botswana and founder/president of the Botswana Society for Women and AIDS in Africa, Sheila Tlou. The founder and director of Moretele Sunrise Hospicehome care in South Africa, Mpho Sebanyon, will also speak. A mother of five children, she left her salaried position in a hospital as a pallatiave care nurse to establish the community project in 1997 in response to the growth of HIV/AIDS. She has been a Woman of the Year in South Africa.