Western nations ravaged by financial crises are cutting back on donations to fight Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic, leaving nations there to rely on their own scarce resources, a researcher said Wednesday in Uganda at the opening of a three-day conference on AIDS in the African military.

"People who help us have been hit by a serious financial crisis," Professor Peter Mugenyi, director of Uganda's Joint Clinical Research Center, told the conference. "This has set back funding, and yet the AIDS crisis is getting worse."

The African Union organized the conference, and the regional think-tank Institute for Security Studies sponsored it. More than 60 participants, including senior military officers from 15 African nations, are in attendance. Conference discussion topics include HIV/AIDS in the military; the virus and peacekeeping missions in Africa; and how to manage the impact of HIV/AIDS in the armed forces. Senior officers at the conference will discuss creating a network to help fight the pandemic.

"We should not sit and wait for the Americans, Europeans," Mugenyi said. "We should get involved because we have the biggest problem. We should get involved finding solutions." "For every two people on treatment, five are getting infected; we are mopping the floor while the tap is flowing," he added. Within the next 10 years, Africa will have to combat drug-resistant HIV strains, which will be very difficult with limited resources, Mugenyi warned.