AFP - The 18th council of war on AIDS has opened up new fronts in a nearly three-decade-old campaign but in the grim awareness that a battle-hardened enemy -- the money crunch -- is back.

AFP - The 18th International AIDS Conference closed in Vienna on Friday after six days of seminars, workshops and networking on fighting AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes it.

Reuters - Treating HIV patients in remote areas of Africa soon after they are infected and using community care teams instead of doctors can cut costs and help people live longer than those treated later, a charity said Thursday.

AFP - Prisons are excellent breeding grounds for HIV, enabling the AIDS virus to propagate swiftly and stealthily, yet many options exist for tackling the problem, the world AIDS conference heard.

AFP - Official indifference, stigma and a blinkered reflex to criminalise drug addicts have turned Eastern Europe and Central Asia into the region where HIV is spreading fastest, the world AIDS forum heard.

AFP - Two global health agencies joined forces on Thursday in a campaign aimed at averting 200,000 deaths each year by co-infection from tuberculosis and the AIDS virus.

AFP - The criminalisation of sex workers, drug users, and men who have sex with men were highlighted as major sources of concern in the fight against HIV in Asia, at the world AIDS conference here Wednesday.

AFP - A "Robin Hood" tax of just a fraction of a percent on financial transactions could smash the funding crisis gripping the war on AIDS, activists said at the world AIDS forum here on Wednesday.

Reuters - Drugmakers Merck, Tibotec and Gilead are in advanced talks with UNITAID about a patent pool to make AIDS drugs more widely available to the poor, the health funding agency said on Wednesday.