Opening of the Cent Gardes Conference in Annecy in 2002. Speeches by the Director of Fondation Mérieux, Alain Mérieux, and participants from other institutions working on HIV vaccines. The film maker Staffan Hildebrand holds a speech about Face of AIDS.

Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an epidemiologist in Durban. She talks about the start of the South African AIDS epidemic and the South African AIDS response, health policies and campaigns. She explains why women are more susceptible to HIV than men are.