Shaping HIV’s Future- A Vision from the CAHR Conference

It was great to be at the Canadian Association for HIV Research conference in Saskatoon earlier this month. Lots of interesting stuff unrolled at CAHR, but one plenary session in particular lit me up. It looked backwards at the origins of HIV and forwards at what we can do to bring an end to AIDS. 

Friday morning was bright and sunny in Saskatoon, but a dark hotel room housed a crowd to hear Doctors Mike Worobey and Mark Tyndall. Worobey’s work is dedicated to exploring the origins of HIV, a puzzle that hasn’t been solved, nor its findings fully agreed upon. Understanding how HIV has evolved could lead to new developments- perhaps a vaccine (although Worobey admitted he isn’t hopeful for that, given HIV’s mutation rate), or at least microbicide options. Tyndall cast his eyes forward, stressing the power we do and don’t have to limit the spread of HIV.

Worobey presented an overview- variations of SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), the precursor to HIV, have led scientists to believe that it’s been around for at least 100,000 years. Based on the analysis of the diversity of HIV in samples recovered from around 1960, Worobey suggested that SIV made the jump to humans as early as the turn of the twentieth century. (He cited Beatrice Hahn’s work on the “how.”)

Although HIV had established itself in humans, it didn’t affect a large population until industrialization took off between 1894 and 1956. With new roads connecting emerging cities and development of business in Central Africa, people moved around a lot more, had more sexual partners, and therefore facilitated the spread of HIV.  Worobey emphasized that human behaviour has spread HIV, and human behaviour can stop it too- HIV is not as infectious as the flu, for example, and behaviour modification with the prevention tools we already have could turn the tide.

Ok, done.

But obviously it’s not that easy.

Dr. Mark Tyndall envisioned a world after AIDS, providing a timeline that went forwards rather than back. He too stressed the importance of our behaviour in the spread of HIV, but he took a social sciences perspective, emphasizing that the playing field isn’t even when making behavioural decisions.  Disparities such as gender, poverty, racism, mental health, governmental negligence and governmental ignorance all play their parts in making HIV prevention a challenge on the individual level where it counts.

In order to turn the tide on HIV, Tyndall argued, we need some significant change. We need to convince those with power on a big scale, like governments, that they need to support change through harm reduction policy and programming. We need to convince those with power on an individual scale, like the man in the moment with a condom available to him, to use it. We need better education on HIV, government support for harm reduction programs like needle exchanges, condom distribution, drug treatment and social programs that address the underlying determinants of health. As societies, we need to change gender disparities so girls and women have more power.  Not so easily done, he admitted. But humanly possible.

What fired me up was this doctor’s inclusion of a wide range of realities that affect health. Health is so much more than our physical bodies, and Tyndall acknowledged that in his call for social change. Yes, there’s a lot of work ahead and it’s international in scope. But looking at the work, breaking it down into pieces, and taking on what we can with passion and conviction is an effort we can all make. As PWN’s vision states, Action and Leadership on Women and HIV/AIDS. Every step has to count.

- Janet 

This was posted on Friday, May 28th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Education & Resources, HIV Prevention, Research . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.

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