The XVIII International AIDS Conference

By Mascha Davis

I am writing this from the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria. It’s only Wednesday of conference week but it already seems that two weeks have gone by in the past few days. The conference draws about 25,000 delegates from around the globe, among them world leaders, policy makers, top researchers, advocates, journalists, as well as many of the big donors. The diversity is incredible – people gathering together from 190 different nations, galvanized by a common cause.

For most delegates attending, the most challenging decisions of the week include: which of these 10 sessions going on at once do I see, how little sleep can I function on, and is it ok to have 4 cups of coffee before noon? The sheer number of plenaries, special sessions, panels, and satellite presentations is astounding and absolutely impossible to see without cloning yourself. However, there were a few sessions that could not be missed, such as Bill Clinton’s plenary speech, Julio Montaner’s (President of IAS) opening presentation, the results of a much anticipated microbicide trial in Africa, and The Lancet special issue session on ‘HIV in People Who Use Drugs’ where many authors who wrote articles presented their work and answered questions.

Clinton’s speech was fantastic. He is such a talented speaker, but seeing him in person took it to another level. He discussed his foundation’s efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and his hopes for the future of HIV/AIDS work. He also talked about the relevance of this year’s conference theme, “Rights Here, Right Now”, especially in relation to decriminalization of drug users and the urgent need for improvement in treatment and harm reduction programs.

This all fit in nicely with the Vienna Declaration, a statement that was released just before the conference, which seeks to ‘improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies’ – it has already been signed by international leaders and many experts, as well as thousands of people who support drug policy reform. As of today, there are over 11,000 signatures – please add yours to the list here!

Probably one of the most exciting events of this whole week was the unveiling of the results of the CAPRISA study. It was released yesterday and the outcomes are front-page news right now on most of the major publications. Researchers conducted a study on microbicide gel and it’s potential to reduce HIV transmission in women in South Africa. The staggering outcomes indicate that when used correctly, HIV transmission is decreased by about 39-50%. This is huge news and the study itself was pretty well publicized leading up to the session yesterday, so an unprecedented number of people showed up to hear the results presented. So many in fact, that the initial conference room was moved to one double in size and then another large hall was opened for overflow – in addition to that there was a crowd outside the conference hall listening to the results. It was amazing. At the end of their presentation, the researchers got a standing ovation from the crowd. It was a truly powerful moment, and made one feel that there is so much hope for the future, and here we are, on the front lines of it all.

Mascha Davis completed her Master of Public Health degree at UCLA. She is participating in the Humanitarian Track of the Duke Program in Global Policy and Governance and is working as a policy and communications intern at the International AIDS Society.