Flags representing the 8,000 people who die of Aids each day, seen near the convention centre. Photograph: Jorge Uzon/AFP/Getty
The Guardian's health editor, Sarah Boseley, is posting from the 16th international Aids conference for News blog this week. Here is her third report. You can read the first two here and here.
To the Bush government and backers of a Christian fundamentalist persuasion, the best way to preventing the spread of HIV/Aids is, in the words of a previous famous first lady, to "just say no". Don't have sex until you are married. Don't sleep with anybody but your partner. Don't inject drugs.
A number of people - to hazard a guess, the majority of the planet's population - don't find these things so easy. At the 16th international Aids conference in Toronto this week, hopes are pinned to scientific innovations that just might give human nature a hand.
Microbicides are among the front runners. These are gels or creams or barriers that a woman could use before she has sex and that kill the virus before it can infect her. The wonderful thing about microbicides is that they will give women an opportunity to protect themselves. For too many women in Africa, it's not a case of "just say no" - it's "can't say no". As a speaker here put it, they do not have control over their own bodies. Rape, violence and husbands who have got HIV from sex with prostitutes are their reality.
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