The International AIDS Society has named at least six delegates, due to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, who were killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Joep Lange, a former International AIDS Society (IAS) president, and his wife Jackie were among those on board the plane which crashed in eastern Ukraine.
Others confirmed as being on the flight by family or friends include Glenn Thomas of the World Health Organisation, Pim de Kuijer of Stop AIDS Now, Lucie van Mens and Maria Adriana de Schutter, both of AIDS Action Europe and Jacqueline van Tongeren of the Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development.
AIDS experts fear invaluable knowledge and information may have been lost because of the incident.
There was a sombre mood at a pre-conference event today ahead of the official launch of the conference on Sunday afternoon.
Flowers were left as a mark of respect at the large sign for the conference on the Princes Bridge in Melbourne.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, the co-chair of the conference, paid tribute to Mr Lange.
“I just would like to say that Joep was not only a great researcher, a great champion of the fight against HIV, but he was also a wonderful human being,” she said.
AIDS 2014 co-chairwoman Professor Sharon Lewin said the conference would go ahead in honour of their colleagues.
“He [Joep] was a God-like figure in the HIV response,” she said.
“He was a clinician, he was a scientist. He was a renaissance man who loved art, literature and books and people.”
Victorian Health Minister David Davis said the best way to pay tribute to those who were lost was by looking forward and supporting their goal of finding a cure for HIV.
“These were people whose focus and whole energies were focused on finding a way forward to prevent human suffering, prevent human misery,” he said.
“I pay tribute to the advocates, to the researchers and to those whose long term goal was to find a cure. “