Thousands of politicians, aid workers and activists are gathering in Mexico for an international conference on AIDS. The UN reported this week that the number of AIDS deaths fell for the second straight year. An estimated two million people succumbed to the disease in 2007. On Thursday, the executive director of UNAIDS, Dr. Peter Piot, said that the global food crisis was affecting the fight against AIDS.

Dr. Peter Piot: “The current food crisis, which is true in many, many countries — and the poorer you are, the more affected you are by that — is affecting also the fight against AIDS. And we have the paradoxical situation that some people have access to pretty expensive and sophisticated drugs but have no food to eat, nothing to eat, or don’t have the money to take the bus to go to the [medical] center and have no job.”