DHAKA: At least 100 leading AIDS research experts were among those killed when a Malaysian passenger jet crashed in Ukraine after being allegedly shot down on Thursday.

Among them was Joep Lange, who researched the condition for more than 30 years and was considered a giant in the field, admired for his tireless advocacy for access to affordable AIDS drugs for HIV positive patients living in poor countries.

Al Jazeera reports, as many as 100 people heading to the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne were on the flight, including Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society which organizes the event.

“The cure for AIDS may have been on that plane, we just don’t know,” Trevor Stratton, an AIDS consultant who was attending a pre-event in Sydney, informed.

“You can’t just help but wonder about the kind of expertise on that plane.”

The conference, due to start on Sunday is expecting about 12,000 participants.

The AIDS society said it was still working with authorities to confirm the number of conference delegates on the flight.

The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was allegedly shot down on Thursday by a surface-to-air missile in an area of eastern Ukraine where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting government forces.

The World Health Organization said its media spokesman Glenn Thomas was also among those on board Flight MH17.

Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, told a news conference in Geneva that Thomas had been with the organization for more than a decade.

BDST: 1949 HRS, JULY 18, 2014