The International AIDS Society today published the programme for the Fifth IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, which takes place in Cape Town, South Africa from July 19th to 22nd.
Conference organisers vowed to continue pushing for evidence-based approaches to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, while emphasising the continued need to strategically invest in HIV research, including operations research, to guide implementation of programmes.
“The need for evidence-based interventions has never been more important,” said International AIDS Society (IAS) President and IAS 2009 Conference Chair Dr. Julio Montaner, Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver. “Good science must inform good policy and programming to ensure the best outcomes for individuals and communities,” added Dr. Montaner. “Science has given us the ability to save lives; now is not the time to be short-sighted.”
The IAS 2009 host country, South Africa, bears the largest burden of the AIDS pandemic of any country in the world, with an estimated 5.7 million people living with HIV in 2007. The decision to hold IAS 2009 in southern Africa the reflects organisers’ desire to refocus the attention of the international scientific community on the continued challenges facing a region that is battling a generalized epidemic, and to highlight the latest efforts to fight it, the International AIDS Society said in a press release.
“IAS 2009 is taking place during an important period of change in South Africa and will be the first international AIDS meeting held here since the new government was installed,” said Conference Co-Chair Prof. Hoosen Coovadia, Chairman of Dira Sengwe and Scientific Director of the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. “This is an ideal opportunity to move both the national and global responses forward, based on sound science.”
A particular focus of the conference will be a new operational research track that will present new findings on the best ways of implementing prevention and treatment programmes in resource-limited settings. The new track is intended to highlight ways to quickly translate scientific discoveries into practical interventions that respond to current challenges in HIV prevention, treatment and care, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
The conference will also include a plenary address, a symposium and an oral abstract session looking at the potential contribution of antiretroviral treatment to prevention, as well as a special session examining the role of social science, law and human rights in scaling up access to biomedical prevention interventions and treatment.
Another important theme at the conference will be renewing research efforts into a cure for HIV infection, with an opening session address from Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who received a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for her role in the discovery of HIV.
A number of major satellite meetings are taking place prior to the conference, including Learning by Doing: Operations Research to Strengthen HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment Scale-up in Resource-limited Settings: What, Why and How? (co-organized by the IAS and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease on 19 July); an invitation-only meeting entitled, Accelerating the Impact of HIV Programming on Health Systems Strengthening (organized by the IAS, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, on 17-18 July); and the 1st International Workshop on HIV Pediatrics, which will bring together experts from different disciplines involved in the daily clinical care of infants and children to explore the latest developments in the field and identify improved strategies (hosted by Virology Education on 17-18 July).
The conference programme is now available at http://www.ias2009.org
www.aidsmap.com will be providing comprehensive news coverage of the conference as the official provider of online news coverage for IAS 2009.
www.clinicaloptions.com/hiv will be providing scientific analysis by key opinion leaders as the official provider of online scientific analysis for IAS 2009.