Vienna Thursday: Advocating for women-centered technologies; combination prevention; Seek-test-treat-retain IDUs

July 22, 2010

As the XVIII International AIDS Conference begins to wind down, there were nonetheless a number of  important topics raised on the conference floor, in press conferences and in the corridors.   Pangaea’s Megan Dunbar participated in a session on “Advocating for Women-Centered HIV Prevention Technologies and Environments” in which she reiterated the need to address structural interventions for HIV prevention that mitigate or eliminate gender inequities, including disparities in educational and economic opportunities for women, and tackle gender-based violence head on.    

We have spoken a lot about combination prevention, bringing together the full force of the range of strategies to prevent infections. But what about "combination evaluation" to assess the impact of these interventions?  There was a fascinating session today focusing on measuring the effects of combination interventions that target hard to reach and vulnerable populations.  Of particular note, Laurel Sprague presented on the “Stigma Index”, a tool developed with representation from UNAIDS, the Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS, International Planned Parent Federation, and the International Community of Women with HIV/AIDS, which measures stigma at all levels. 

Science has been strong at Vienna: In addition to the CAPRISA microbicide results, several important scientific findings have come out of the conference this week: 

  • The Camilla study, out of Cambodia, suggests that among recently diagnosed TB patients, early treatment of HIV through ART significantly improves TB and HIV outcomes, and reduces mortality. 
  • Integrating  point-of-care rapid CD4 testing has shown to increase the uptake of ART.
  • “Test and treat” of HIV infected individuals continues to be a topic hotly debated in terms of the relative costs and benefits of such a model in reducing the burden of HIV worldwide. 

On the advocacy front, the International AIDS Society launched a new report recommending a new paradigm for infecting drug users:  Seek, Test, Treat and Retain.  The report, “Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS amongst Drug Using Populations: A Global Perspective”, advocates a science based approach expanding the implementation of outreach to high-risk, hard-to-reach drug using populations (seek), to encourage HIV testing (test), to link HIV+ individuals to care (treat), and to sustain these individuals in care. We strongly welcome this report as we deepen our support to strengthening comprehensive HIV services for IDU populations around the world.

 

 

 


 

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