Controlling the HIV Epidemic - The Promise of ARV-based Prevention

Materials and Links AGENDA PRESENTATIONS Veronica Miller Victor De Gruttola Sheena McCormack Gus Cairns Matthias Egger Sheena McCormack Pietro Vernazza

July 17, 2011
10:15 am - 1:15 pm

 

Recent successes in microbicides, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), test and treat, and vaccines are encouraging developments in AIDS research and give reason for optimism that the epidemic might be controllable in some populations. To make full use of new knowledge and technology, efforts at HIV prevention must be coordinated and focused on clearly defined goals. The meeting and discussion argue the case for making HIV epidemic control the goal of prevention, and for assembling the required expertise, and deploying essential resources, to conduct needed studies. A variety of studies of prevention packages are now being planned or are underway.

• One focus of the meeting will be review of these studies and consideration of what else may be needed in advancing the prevention agenda.
• Another focus will be presentation and discussion of planned or proposed combination prevention pilot studies in different countries.

This session was intended to illustrate and discuss issues in development of large scaled community-based prevention pilots. We foresee the workshop serving as a first step in the development of a consensus statement on the need to ramp up efforts to use ARV-based combination prevention (such as test and treat, mircrobicdes, and PrEP) for community-level control of HIV infection. Such efforts require consultation and coordination among industry, governments, international agencies, research institutes, and community groups. Combination prevention studies must be undertaken in a wide variety of settings and make use of, as well as strengthen, existing infrastructure for testing, monitoring, and treating people living with or at risk of HIV infection. The "3 by 5" initiative launched in 2003 by WHO and UNAIDS had an enormous impact on advancing access to ARV throughout the world, and we believe that the time is right for the development of a multi-stakeholder consensus statement on the need to expand efforts to use ARV-based combination prevention to achieve community-level control of HIV infection.

Location: IAS 2011 Meeting; Mini Room 1
Date and Time: July 17, 2011 10:15 AM-1:15 PM