MOVING FORWARD ON TREATMENT AS PREVENTION
Bob Leahy was in Vancouver last week for the International Treatment as Prevention Workshop, an important gathering of global leaders, experts and community, which left him highly optimistic that we have the tools to end the epidemic. Here's his report.
Author - Bob Leahy - Editor
29 April 2013
"We have an obligation to decide whether the evidence is enough. We've waited too long to do what we know
is right. Enough is enough. We need to move to implement."
Acknowledging that "we have a consensus in this room but not outside this room" BCCFE's Dr. Julio Montaner, looking
dapper in a dark suit and bright red tie, opened the third annual International Treatment as Prevention Workshop in Vancouver
last week.
Fitting that we should be there in his home town. Vancouver was the site of the 1996 International AIDS Conference
where the advent of protease inhibitors caused such excitement, leading some to rush to predict the end of the epidemic was
nigh. It wasn't of course, but the power of those antiretrovirals launched in 1996 to not only restore health but
virtually eliminate infectivity in some circumstances has led us all to the place we are at today. That place
is a room of three hundred experts from all corners of the globe. There are almost 40 countries
represented here, including many high ranking diplomats, scientists and health officials, not
to mention people living with HIV from around the globe. We even have a Prime Minister in our midst.
It's challenging to cover all that that transpired in the following four days, so you'll find only the highlights
here. Those with a deeper interest in this hottest of hot topics are advised to go the conference
website here for more coverage of the many excellent
presentations that will be posted there later this week.
But it would be remiss not to include some highlights here - the stirring opening remarks of Canada's Stephen
Lewis and UNAIDS head Michel Sidibe, for instance, the exciting debate on whether treatment as prevention (TasP) works for
gay men, the voice of a remarkable community activist Paul Kawata from The National Aids Minority Council - and the
place of PrEP in all this talk about test and treat.
Read full article here
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Source: PositiveLite.com - Canada's Online HIV Magazine
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