Major UN Aids meeting takes place in New York
The Taoiseach will address the UN General Special Assembly session on HIV and Aids later today.
The meeting in New York will be attended by 3,000 delegates including more than 20 heads of Government.
Bertie Ahern will announce that Ireland will be providing more funding next year to tackle Aids epidemics in the World's poorest countries.
He will also call for an international system of tiered pricing for Aids medicines, to help the most impoverished nations attain life-saving treatments.
The visit comes, as the UN Secretary General said 22 million people were already dead form Aids-related illnesses.
Kofi Annan said the world's response had until now not measured up to the challenge.
Ireland's financial contribution however, is likely to be swamped by the billions of pounds really needed to fight the effects of the crisis.
All the while, the incidence of new cases and numbers of deaths in Ireland is steadily increasing.
