UNAIDS Joins Hands With Vienna's Life Ball to Raise Funds in the Fight Against AIDS

In an effort to step up awareness about AIDS and raise funds, UNAIDS has now teamed up with the organisers of Vienna's AIDS charity Life Ball.

"This collaboration underscores the importance of building partnerships in the AIDS response and doing so in an innovative way," the UN agency's executive director Michel Sidibe told a press conference alongside Gery Keszler, co-founder of AIDS LIFE, which organises the annual Life Ball extravaganza.

"Another milestone has been marked with this new cooperation with UNAIDS: the beginning of a new era for the Life Ball," Keszler responded as the two agencies signed a cooperation agreement Wednesday.

The partnership, starting next year, will coincide with the 30th anniversary of the discovery of HIV in 2011.

In a report Tuesday, UNAIDS founds the number of new cases of HIV/AIDS had dropped by about one-fifth over the past decade.

But millions of people are still missing out on major progress in prevention and treatment, the UN agency said.

The Life Ball -- one of the biggest AIDS charity events in the world, attracting some 40,000 revellers every year -- raised over 1.5 million euros, last year.

Past guests have included former US president Bill Clinton, singer Katy Perry and actress Sharon Stone.

Source: AFP