HIV

Charity number: 1078268 * Company registration number: 3867526

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The XVII International AIDS Conference, Mexico City

The first International AIDS Conference to focus on Latin America took place from 3 – 8 August in Mexico City, the largest city in the Spanish-speaking world. The conference, held every two years, is the biggest gathering of AIDS experts, advocates, people with HIV and physicians, and this year it has attracted more than 22,000 delegates.

This year’s meeting with the theme of “Universal Action Now! ” will draw particular attention to issues that make the epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean distinctive.  It will have the strongest focus on men who have sex with men of any International AIDS Conference to date, with a major pre-conference meeting devoted to the subject and several major sessions highlighting the need for more effective prevention work with gay and bisexual men, especially in resource-limited settings.

In Latin America HIV predominantly affects men who have sex with men, sex workers and injecting drug users.  More than 2 million people are living with HIV in the region – more than western Europe and the USA combined – but HIV prevalence is low in comparison to sub-Saharan Africa, at around 0.5%.

On the global level AIDS 2008 will highlight the need for new breakthroughs in HIV prevention after a string of disappointing results in trials of biomedical prevention tools like microbicides and vaccines. Using antiretroviral drugs in vaginal gels that can protect against HIV infection will be one focus of discussion, with encouraging data due to be presented on an animal study showing that the approach looks promising.

But the hottest prevention topic at the conference will focus on the question: when does someone with undetectable HIV levels in the blood stop being infectious to others?  Recent advice by the Swiss Federal AIDS Commission stated that heterosexuals in monogamous relationships where the HIV-positive partner has undetectable viral load, and where neither person has a sexually transmitted infection, can stop using condoms due to a theoretically low risk of infection.  This has triggered fierce debate worldwide and that debate will appear in several major conference sessions during the conference.

The treatment-related focus of the conference will be on expanding access to antiretroviral therapy in developing countries. This year, with more than 3 million people now on treatment, sessions will pay particular attention to how treatment access can be expanded further by giving more responsibility for prescribing and monitoring treatment to non-physicians such as nurses and clinical officers.

There will also be a major focus on making treatment more available to children, and increasing the number of women who have access to antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.

More information can be found at aidsmap.com giving extensive coverage of the XII International AIDS Conference.  Webcasts of selected conference sessions can be viewed at the Kaiser Network HIV/AIDS website, and listen to expert commentary podcasts at the Clinical Care Options for HIV website.

Source: Aidsmap - Keith Alcorn, August 02, 2008