Q & A pays silent tribute to MH17 victims

Q & A last night held a silent moment to remember the victims of the MH17 plane crash.

Q & A was staged against the backdrop of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, which lost a number of delegates and world leaders in the campaign against HIV-AIDS.

Tony Jones asked the audience to pay their respects silently before the show began its weekly forum.

Questions about MH17 dominated early questions from audience members, including how difficult it was to continue with the Conference.

French Nobel Prize-winner and co-discoverer of HIV, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi said, “For us it’s very hard as you can imagine. We have lost colleagues and friends. it was really difficult for us to decide whether we should go on, yes or no.

“The answer came very easily after we were thinking very carefully about our friends and colleagues. We said to ourselves ‘It’s really what they would like us to do.’

“So we have to go on. We really have to move forward, to go on for them.”

Former High Court Judge Michael Kirby said it was important to remember that those battling HIV-AIDS have known death, including in great numbers, before.

“It’s not new to this community, not new to this audience, not new to the members of this panel. It renews out energy. We lost our first global leader in a plane crash, Jonathan Mann,” he said.

“How do we prevent this from happening again?” asked Indonesian Health Minister and Chair of The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Nafsiah Mboi. “This is unacceptable to humanity. We, all of us, are responsible. All countries are responsible to say ‘Ok we should this prevent this happening again.”