The Forum for Collaborative HIV Research convened its 2015 National Summit on HCV and HIV Diagnosis, Prevention, and Access to Care on June 4th-6th in Arlington, Virginia. The mission of the Summit is to support improvement in HCV and HIV testing, prevention, and linkage to care in the United States. Present at this meeting were the nation's public health scientific and advocacy leadership to discuss state-of-the-art mechanisms and initiatives to support the "National HIV/AIDS Strategy" and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' "Action Plan for the Prevention, Care, and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis".We did a little bit of everything during the Summit. One of our main duties was to take notes during the breakout sessions and help prepare the rapporteur slides. It was interesting to see how a conference worked from an organizer's perspective. Personally, I learned an incredible amount from just being in the room and listening to people speak. It was an amazing experience to be among some of the leaders in the field, hear about current issues, and see public health in action.
Thursday, June 4th, 2015
The event began with a series of opening remarks from the Summit's co-chairs leading into the keynote speech by Dr. Ronald O. Valdiserri from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy. Following that, members of the Summit organizing committee and leaders from academia, industry, and community organizations engaged in a panel discussion. Dr. John Ward, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Viral Hepatitis Program, made several comments; most notably on his concerns about the growing HCV epidemic in the country and the need for better surveillance to more accurately assess the issue. The night culminated in the awarding of the fourth C. Everett Koop Public Health Leadership Award to Dr. John G. Bartlett , Professor Emeritus, from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Bartlett has been at the forefront of fighting the AIDS epidemic since the early 1980s and his influence and guidance are present in the treatment practices utilized today.
Click here to view videos of the award ceremony and Dr. Bartlett's remarks. Click here for tributes from Dr. Bartlett's colleagues and admirers.
Friday, June 5th, 2015
This day contained the bulk of the Summit's programming. A special plenary co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy titled Strategies to Improve the HCV Continuum of Care: Best Practices in Testing, Linkage to Care, and Treatment started the day. Model programs and strategies to address the gaps in the continuum of care at the federal, state, and local levels were showcased in this section. The remainder of the day consisted of breakout sessions which allowed over 80 researchers and public health professionals to present their findings, innovative ideas, and best practices. Each of the four breakout session tracks had a specific theme: Routine and Expanded Testing, Prevention Models, Outcomes and Impact Evaluation, and Access, Linkage, and Retention in Care. In addition, there were two cross-cutting sessions, one on testing, prevention, and care across correctional settings and another focused on interventions for persons who inject drugs. A poster session commencing after the final breakout session gave all 140 project teams an opportunity to share their work with conference attendees. Mixed into the breakout sessions was the final plenary session of the day: The Current State and Future Prospects for Bio-Behavioral HIV Prevention. The panel discussed, among other topics, the results and implications of the START trial and the overall level of knowledge of HIV science and treatment among non-medical providers.
Click here to access the materials from the summit including posters and presentation slides. Click here for videos of the plenaries.
Saturday, June 6th, 2015
Two plenary sessions brought the Summit to a conclusion. The first plenary was dedicated to a discussion of recent HIV and HCV outbreaks, specifically the epidemic in Scott County, Indiana and the rising incidence of the two in neighboring Appalachia. Dr. Jennifer Walthall from the Indiana State Department of Health, Dr. Carolyn Wester from the Tennessee Department of Health, and Dr. Amy Lansky from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Office of National AIDS Policy participated in a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Sally Hodder from the West Virginia School of Medicine. This powerful session provided insight into recent significant HIV and HCV events and evoked emotional responses from some of those in attendance. An increasing call for the lifting of the Congressional ban on federal funds for needle exchanges was a major theme among the audience's comments. The Summit culminated with a final panel on the strategy and vision for moving forward. This panel laid out next steps and encouraged the usage of the information shared at this gathering for future efforts and initiatives.
To view the videos of the final day's panel sessions, click here.
