Urgent action by African leaders is needed if they are to make good on commitments to roll back the AIDS pandemic, delegates attending an HIV research conference in Kenya heard on Monday.

Speakers at this week's Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health Research Alliance (SAHARA) conference, 'Innovations in Access to Prevention, Treatment and Care in HIV/AIDS', in Kenya's western city of Kisumu, said political commitment to combat AIDS must be accompanied by adequate funding for intervention programmes, as well as strategic partnerships with NGOs, researchers, the private sector and people infected and affected by HIV.

"Key stakeholders must come together to walk the talk ... they must consider AIDS as an emergency, because it is," Olive Shisana, head of South Africa's Human Sciences Research Centre and founder of SAHARA, told the conference during the opening ceremony.

She said although governments had made repeated commitments nationally and at international conventions, they were failing to live up to their promises of increased funding for healthcare and stronger leadership in the fight against AIDS.

Some countries, such as Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe, had registered success in reducing prevalence, Shisana noted, but many other aspects needed much more effort. For example, Namibia had the best record in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) in southern Africa, but reached just a quarter of all pregnant women.

"The vulnerability of populations across the continent and the disproportionate deaths [due to AIDS], and the apparent inadequate response of governments and the international community, shows that there is still a need to search for innovations to find an adequate response to the pandemic," said Dan Kaseje, vice-chancellor of the Great Lakes University of Kenya, which is situated in Kisumu.

Sub-Saharan Africa, with close to 25 million people living with the virus, is the region worst affected by the pandemic.