AIDS: International AIDS Conference

As part of our coverage of the biennial AIDS conference from the International AIDS Society, we spoke with Madalitso Juwayeyi, program manager at FACT-Malawi, to learn more about her organization and how it strives to serve the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescent girls and young women in her native Malawi.

The 25th International AIDS Conference took place July 22-26 in Munich, Germany, and one of the sessions delved into the potential impact of civil society laws on the 95-95-95 targets as laid out in the UNAIDS Global AIDS Strategy for 2021 to 2026.

In a session at AIDS 2024, the International AIDS Conference, global leaders and community advocates gathered to discuss why stigma and shame continue to attach themselves to an HIV diagnosis and why policy efforts to overcome both must persist.

At the 25th International AIDS Conference, Emmanuel Nazaire Essam, MD, MPH, presented the analysis, "Medicaid Insurance Expansion and Its Association With HIV Outcomes in Nebraska, USA: An Observational Prospective Cohort Study."

At AIDS 2024 in July, Kelly Dyer, MD, Perelman School of Medicine, presented research findings from an investigation at the intersection of health equity, substance use detox, infectious disease screening, and patient harm reduction.

Jennifer Cocohoba, PharmD, MAS, AAHIVP, University of California, San Francisco, School of Pharmacy, discusses the benefits of pharmacy-administered long-acting injectable antiretroviral therapy for HIV and patient attitudes toward pharmacy-administered treatment.

A trio of posters presented at AIDS 2024, the 25th International AIDS Conference, explored widespread disparities in access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and how to make access more equitable, both globally and locally.

For the recent AIDS 2024 conference, we spoke with Nishita Dsouza, PhD, MPH, Columbia University School of Social Work Social Intervention Group, who presented research on HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention among Black women with criminal legal system involvement.

In part 1 of this interview, Musarrat Perveen, regional coordinator at Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility in Asia (CARAM Asia), explained the research she presented at the 25th International AIDS Conference and the disparities migrant workers continue to encounter in HIV care.

We spoke with Musarrat Perveen, regional coordinator at Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility in Asia (CARAM Asia), who advocates at regional and global levels for policy reform of discriminatory practices that put migrant workers at risk of HIV and AIDS.

This research presented at AIDS 2024 shows that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) groups help to fill an unmet need among older persons living with HIV: to overcome the age-related health disparities this group experiences from being in long-term care and improve their health outcomes.

Patricia Cioe, PhD, presented data at AIDS 2024 from a study that investigated the impact of peer support on people living with HIV who smoke, a group for whom there are higher rates of cardiac events and cancer.

These 48-week data from ARTISTRY-1 build on 24-week results previously presented and show enduring efficacy of bictegravir plus lenacapavir.

A late-breaking abstract focused on a head-to-head comparison between dolutegravir/lamivudine (DTG/3TC) and bictegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir (BIC/FTC/TAF) in the treatment of HIV.

Anchalee Avihingsanon, MD, PhD, HIV-NAT, Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre, Bangkok, Thailand, is principal investigator of the ALLIANCE trial.

Anchalee Avihingsanon, MD, PhD, HIV-NAT, Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre, Bangkok, Thailand, is principal investigator of the ALLIANCE trial from Gilead.

The ALLIANCE trial is the first randomized blinded trial to investigate tenofovir alafenamide vs tenofovir disoproxil fumarate in treatment-naive individuals who have comorbid HIV/hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection.

City of Hope has announced that a patient living with HIV, who received a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor to treat acute myelogenous leukemia, has been in remission from both diseases since 2019.

According to the World Health Organization, self-care is “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote and maintain health, prevent disease, and cope with illness with or without the support of a health care provider.”

“We need to maintain our focus on key populations to ensure that we're focusing on each and every key population—from men who have sex with men to sex workers to people who inject drugs to our trans community—to make sure every single community has access to both prevention and treatment services and that we’re meeting each of the community members where they are to ensure that they can achieve viral suppression,” said Ambassador Deborah Birx, MD, on day 4 of AIDS 2020.

A panel of experts came together on day 3 of AIDS 2020 to discuss their experiences with telehealth during the first few months of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in attempting to not disrupt the continuum of care for their patients with HIV, those at risk for the virus, and their care teams, as well as to give advice moving forward in continuing to offer the service.

Individuals with severe mental illness are notoriously difficult to engage and retain in HIV care due to fragmented health care policies and systems that perpetuate stigma, according to an electronic poster presentation today at AIDS 2020.

“We find ourselves in a very unusual situation, and now is a good time for me to lay some common denominator principles that I think can be applicable to many, if not all, the countries beset with an HIV epidemic,” said Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a special live session on day 2 of AIDS 2020.

Higher rates of HIV can be seen within specific communities, particularly minority communities, along with a systematic bias taking place in policy and medical settings, noted Greg Millet, vice president at the Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) and director of amFAR’s Public Policy Office, on day 2 of AIDS 2020.

The US government's Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America, is founded on 4 pillars: diagnose, treat, prevent, respond. The goals of this program are to reduce new HIV infections by 75% by 2025 and by 90% by 2030.

Following implementation of several major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, health insurance coverage for HIV-positive individuals increased, leading to sustained viral suppression in some instances and improving their ability to increase access to often life-saving services.

This year marks the 23rd International AIDS Conference, AIDS 2020, and the 30th anniversary of the first conference held in San Francisco in 1990 amid the first few years of the AIDS epidemic. The theme for this year’s conference is “Resilience,” and that certainly holds true for this global undertaking, which is happening in a virtual setting for the first time in the conference’s history due to the current coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.