Contrary to AIDS funding policy in the US which encourages abstinence and discourages drug use and prostitution, Micsrosoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda insisted on Tuesday that safe sex and women empowerment should be the prevention strategies in the future.

‘‘We need tools that will allow women to protect themselves and not rely on the man to take the decision for her. We need tools which are controlled by women,’’ said Gates to a delegation of 24,000 people attending the XVI AIDS conference in Toronto.

‘‘Whether the woman is the faithful married mother of small children or a sex worker trying to scrape out a living in a slum, no matter where she lives, who she is or what she does, a woman should never need her partner’s permission to save her own life’’ he added.

The couple insisted on developing women-controlled tools like microbicides-tropical ointment for vagina which block the infection or oral HIV pills to prevent the infection.

‘‘How would abstinence help a women who is married to an ailing old man or raped everyday in a brothel. How does being faithful help a mother of four and whose husband gets infected by the sex worker,’’ asked Melinda.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has so far contributed $1.9 billion and recently announced a further $500 million grant to a Geneva-based fund that helps those suffering from the virus.

Bill Gates told the opening session of the Conference, which has attracted 24,000 scientists, activists and health workers, that the search for a vaccine to prevent the HIV virus, and universal treatment of those infected, remained his foundation’s top priorities.

... contd.