Conference Charge

Several staff and members of PWN attended the Canadian Association for HIV/AIDS Research Conference last week. It’s a conference that offers sessions in several areas, from basic science to social science, epidemiology and public health. It’s big enough to offer a good array of options (abstracts can be viewed online). What was particularly great was the passion. Yes, there was lots of information to spur everyone on to do more work, extend our reach and connect more with each other across this big country, but the attitude around and about was positive.

Take for example the satellite session on microbicides featuring presentations by Marc- Andre Leblanc of the Global Campaign for Microbicides as well as others. It took place at 8 AM Sunday morning, the last day of the conference, when you’d expect the attendance to be sparse. The room was packed and overflowing into the hall. Microbicide development has been slow, challenging, and often ignored by mainstream pharmaceuticals and it’s still a new topic to many who’ve been in the HIV community for years. But by the end of the session, everyone was on board for microbicides advocacy, with the commitment that next year’s conference would include more than a satellite session.

There were some pauses for dismay. A presentation from Toronto found that women were not being provided with appropriate pre and post test counseling when being tested during pregnancy. At diagnosis, they weren’t being offered information on community resources. Toronto? I thought. If things are bad there, what about smaller communities? Obviously, there’s not a lack of work to be done.

A conference like this is an opportunity to learn, recharge and rethink approaches to everything: HIV messaging, health care, social support, populations where the virus is appearing. With that, the lot of us move forward refreshed.

- Janet

This was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 10:02 am and is filed under Networking, News . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.

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