HIV : The 2016 International AIDS Conference
Truvada may have drastically changed the way we think about AIDS and HIV infection, but that doesn’t mean that the fight against the disease is over. Just concluding in Durban, South Africa is the 21st International AIDS Conference, where experts and activists talked about updates about the disease, the possibility of a vaccine, and how communities all over the world are responding to the disease.
The conference featured a sprawling program that had more than 500 activities and sessions, with a special session held last Thursday that included musician and AIDS activist Elton John and England’s Prince Harry and Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso. With the title “Ending AIDS with the Voice of Youth”, the special session sought to address the HIV epidemic among adolescents.
Other names that spoke at the conference included Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President of South Africa, Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, Nkhensani Mavasa, Chairperson of South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, and Charlize Theron, Founder of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project and United Nations Messenger of Peace.
The search for a vaccine was also a big topic during the conference’s second day, with Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, the National Institutes of Health’s Director of the Division of AIDS, dubbing it “HIV vaccine day” because of the number of presentations about advances in ongoing HIV vaccine research.
In a Facebook Live conversation on the AIDS.gov page, Dieffenbach noted the leaps and bounds made in the number of people now undergoing therapy for HIV infection, as well as the challenges in developing an HIV vaccine.
“Sixteen years ago we were here when therapy was just beginning to move internationally. There is now approximately 200,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa on therapy today. Globally we have almost 19 million people on anti-retroviral therapy. It has been such a sea change over the past 16 years,” he recalled.
But while leaps and bounds may have been made in therapy, the conference also brought to light that access to treatment is not available to half of those afflicted with HIV, and prevention tools like Truvada (PrEP) is not available to most people outside the Western world. Outside of the West, the human rights of those afflicted with the disease are often violated as well.
The conference also saw the first two recipients of The Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) LGBT Fund. Began in 2015 by Sir Elton John and Ambassador Deborah L. Birx, the $10 million Fund seeks to address stigma, discrimination, and violence faced by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people.
The two recipients were he International HIV/AIDS Alliance (The Alliance) and the Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF). The award is expected to strengthen the capacity of the two organizations in addressing stigma and discrimination through innovative and community-led approaches in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.
While both an HIV vaccine and cure remain elusive, the best thing to do is to always be vigilant and get tested regularly. If you’re looking for a testing center near you, you can use AIDS.gov’s service locator to help you out. Now go out there and play safe!
I have just started treatment for HIV and the meds are making me really sick. My stomach has never felt so query in my life I don’t think. I have absolutely nobody to talk to about it except for the Doctor who prescribed it for me. I am very thankful for the treatment but would love to find a good person to talk to about it and the side affects. I would be happy to help others as they helped me. I am including my email address in this so if there is someone out there who may want what once was called a pen pal please HMU and let’s chat
Mitch, you have to eat when you take the meds… Take your meds during your lunch. Eat your breakfast + one capsule of Probiotique then eat a snack around 10, then eat half of your lunch, take your meds and then finish the rest of your lunch. I suggest meat, rice and lots of green veggies (it lowers acidity in your stomach and meds make your stomach acid). Try that and let me know tomorrow 🙂 xo
Dave
Well it all depends on what meds or med you are on really. Some can make you really sick and yes some you have to eat with and some you have to do on an empty stomach. It really depends on what one you are on. Like atripla you have to take on an empty stomach and the new one that came out Genvoya you have to eat with but nothin to heavy or it will make you feel like poop the next day.
Yeah ask your doctor, he will be happy to help you with that for sure.
One of the biggest things to come out of Durban is again the success of TasP and the validation of what the swiss said a decade ago….undetectable=non-infectious..
These results are simple to understand – zero transmissions from over 58,000 individual times that people had sex without condoms.
Simon Collins, a member of the PARTNER study steering committee, described the results as “simple to understand.” In a statement, he explained, “This provides the strongest estimate of actual risk of HIV transmission when an HIV positive person has undetectable viral load — and that risk is effectively zero.”
“The results provide a dataset to question whether transmission with an undetectable viral load is actually possible. They should help normalise HIV and challenge stigma and discrimination.”