Rural communities are being torn apart while the bulk of AIDS prevention and support work focuses on the continent's cities, according to speakers at the UN's Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA).

Development workers, researchers and politicians, including Kenneth Kaunda, the former president of Zambia, were in the Ethiopian capital for the commission's third session of open discussions and debates.

The discussions will feed into CHGA's final report on the long-term impact of the pandemic in Africa, which is due to be submitted to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in June 2005.

"Earlier in the pandemic, HIV/AIDS was viewed merely as an urban phenomenon, and most of the response is still focussed there," said K.Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa, as he opened the session.

"Now, however, we can see that the epidemic has spread to our rural areas where the vast majority of Africans live," he added.

"Households are losing key productive members in their prime and communities are losing the main producers of food. Crucial knowledge is lost and the fabric of rural communities is being torn apart," he said.

The Commission includes prominent international figures among its members, including Joy Phumaphi, the World Health Organisation's assistant Director General, Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS and Richard Feachem, head of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Africa accounts for 25 million out of the estimated 38 million people across the world infected with HIV, and the vast majority of infected Africans are women, according to UNAIDS estimates.