From the early days of the HIV epidemic, the unique nature of the International AIDS Conference and its power to mobilize governments, scientists and the international media, while bringing hope and support to people living with HIV, has played a crucial role in shaping the course of HIV and AIDS.

Looking back, the International AIDS Conferences are signposts in the history of the epidemic, showing us not only where we went, but where we should have gone. Since the very first International AIDS Conference in Atlanta in 1985, when the scientists and public health officials grappling with how to respond to the emerging HIV epidemic gathered together to present an overview of knowledge about the disease, the conference has provided the platform needed to effectively respond to the pressing scientific, economic, social and political contexts of the day. More...

The HPTN 052 results were headline news at IAS 2011. Principal Investigator Myron Cohen, MD, talked with the IAS about the years of work that went into the trial, the research team’s emotions upon first learning the results, and the weeks that followed. Dr. Cohen is Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health and Director of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

By Scott Sanders

As Myron Cohen and his colleagues finished presenting the results of the HPTN 052 trial to a packed room at IAS 2011, the audience rose to its feet in a standing ovation. It was a rare occurrence at a scientific meeting, reflecting the significance of the results and the tremendous efforts behind them.

The emotions of Cohen and his team members that July afternoon in Rome were a far cry from those they had felt less than three months before. Heading back to the Washington, DC, airport after a regularly scheduled meeting with the study’s Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) on 28 April 2011, the researchers feared the study might be about to come to an end. The research team was completely blinded to the study results data and some of the unusual actions of the DSMB members in the meeting that day had them fearing the worst. More...

Sam Banda Junior, Media Scholarship Recipient and Reporter for Blantyre Newspapers, Malawi, was able to experience a state of the art media centre for the first time at IAS 2011

This was my first time at an international HIV/AIDS conference and I am grateful for the opportunity I was given.
v This being my first experience of a large conference on HIV, I wanted to learn as much as possible about the latest findings in the HIV field. Also, I wanted to link up with fellow media representatives from other countries and get to know the state of the HIV epidemic in their regions.

As Malawi is one of the countries in the African continent with little access to ARV therapies, I wanted to hear from drug manufacturing companies what kind of initiatives they are undertaking to make ARVs more accessible. More...