"With our small population base, we are at a very real risk of being wiped out as peoples...," Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) chairman Epeli Ganilau told

Fiji, with a population of 845,000 people, officially has 142 AIDS patients, 117 of them ethnic Fijians.

Indigenous Melanesian or Polynesians make up some 51 percent of the nation's population, with 42 percent ethnic Indians.

"We need to talk about it and traditional taboos in discussing such issues cannot be used as an excuse anymore," Ganilau said.

"If the youth is our future and they are sick, then we have no future. AIDS is very real and we need a collective effort to ensure we survive as a people."

He said that by participating in the AIDS meeting, which starts March 22, "the council emphasises the need to confront the issue."

President Josefa Iloilo will host the conference at his village, Viseisei, in the west of Fiji.

The GCC is indigenous Fiji's pre-eminent political institution, made up of around 46 of the top traditional district chiefs.

The AIDS conference marks an unusual step outside its regular political arena.

United Nations Development Programme resident representative Peter Witham, who will co-facilitate the meeting with Ganilau, said: "Pacific islands have time to tackle this problem and stop the tragedy that has occurred in other countries."

"The work must begin before people start dying in droves. The lesson of today is that the countries that approach this issue most openly with political and high-level support are usually successful," he said.

TERRA.WIRE