01 Oct 2018
Australasian HIV & AIDS Conference insight
Jared Stern, a PhD student in Professor Sharon Lewin's laboratory shares his insights from the 2018 Australasian HIV & AIDS Conference held in Sydney.
The Australasian HIV and AIDS conference is always a hub of comprehensive and collaborative research involving multiple disciplines, and this year’s conference was no different.
Professor Rebecca Guy’s update on the latest HIV epidemiology in Australia was a fascinating opening to the conference. There is promising data showing Australia is at the forefront of the UNAIDS 90-90-90 treatment cascade and that HIV positive people in Australia are being treated earlier and achieving viral suppression faster.
Yet there are still some significant gaps to close, particularly in Indigenous communities and the heterosexual population where diagnoses are increasing and people are being diagnosed later.
Professor Jintanat Ananworanich’s presentation on cohorts in Thailand who are diagnosed during acute stages of HIV infection and treated within days of diagnosis certainly provides motivation for us that we can follow suite.
Her work is also incredibly extensive, looking at how HIV spreads throughout tissues early in infection and persists even on treatment. For instance, viral RNA can be detected in lymph nodes as early as one to two weeks after infection and can be detected even after years of antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Professor Ananworanich also emphasised the importance of involving the HIV positive community’s thoughts and feelings when conducting clinical trials and providing them with continuous support.
This was further highlighted in the HIV Cure Clinical Trials and Participation cross-track session where Cipriano Martinez from the National Association of People Living with HIV Australia, spoke about how love overwhelmingly promotes people’s altruism when participating in trials. He also posited two questions to the audience; “What type of cure research would you provide funding to?” and “What type of cure research would you participate in?”.
These are two sides of the same coin and we should certainly ensure that they are balanced. Dr Jillian Lau’s award-winning presentation on community and provider attitudes towards cure trials finely examines these issues.