Bangkok, Thailand ? Nelson Mandela said he could not rest until the world turned the tide against the HIV pandemic, as delegates wrapped up the biggest-ever AIDS conference Friday, highlighting the soaring infections among women and warning of explosive epidemics in Asia.

Much of the six-day gathering focused on the politics of getting more lifesaving anti-retroviral medicine to HIV-infected people in the developing world, especially in Africa.

Criticism of President Bush’s international AIDS program was a recurring theme, with both world leaders and activists calling on the Americans to give more money, allow their funds to be used to buy cheaper generic drugs and abandon their focus on prevention efforts that favor abstinence over condom use.

“The Bush administration’s policies are wrong and divisive and they should be bashed,” said AIDS activist Zackie Achmat, who heads the South Africa-based Treatment Action Campaign.

Throughout the conference, Randall Tobias, the global AIDS coordinator for the U.S. government, dismissed the protests, saying the United States was doing more than all other countries put together.

Bush launched a $15 billion AIDS-fighting plan two years ago for the developing world, pledging $1 billion of the money to the U.N.-initiated Global Fund, which is trying to channel the bulk of the money to programs in poor countries.

The U.S. money dedicated to bilateral programs comes with strings attached — one-third of the funds earmarked for prevention goes to abstinence-first programs. Also, the money currently can buy only branded drugs, made by companies in rich countries, shutting out generic medicines from developing nations that are not only cheaper but also formulated into three-in-one pills that make it easier for people to stick with treatment.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in May that it would accelerate applications from generic drug makers, but no such drugs have been submitted for approval.